Jesse Jacksonhttp://nlpc.org/taxonomy/term/108/all
enWill Rush to Judgment in Baltimore Lead to More Rioting?http://nlpc.org/stories/2015/05/08/will-rush-judgment-baltimore-lead-more-rioting
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.nlpc.org/files/Sharpton Rawlings-Blake.jpg" style="width: 300px; float: right; height: 200px;" />In Baltimore, the ashes have cooled; the curfew has ended; the National Guardsmen have left; and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have gone home.&nbsp; But the apparent normalcy is misleading.&nbsp; For the orgy of looting, vandalism and arson last week following the death of a career petty criminal, Freddie Gray, may return with a vengeance if the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/02/us/freddie-gray-autopsy-report-given-to-baltimore-prosecutors.html?_r=0">six arrested local police officers</a>, three white and three black, are not convicted.&nbsp; Gray died on April 19 of spinal injuries sustained a week earlier while in custody. Last Friday, State&#39;s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced arrests for one count of second-degree murder and several counts of manslaughter, assault and misconduct.&nbsp; Yet treating this case as a homicide, racially motivated or not, isn&#39;t just premature.&nbsp; It&#39;s also a capitulation to mob rule.&nbsp;</p>
<p>It has become a familiar story over the past year.&nbsp; A police officer or group of officers encounters an individual behaving in a suspicious manner.&nbsp; The suspect, rather than cooperate, either flees on foot or becomes violent.&nbsp; In response, the cop(s), seeing the need for self-defense, reacts with deadly force.&nbsp; It happened in Staten Island (N.Y.) last July, Ferguson (Mo.) last August, North Charleston (S.C.) early this April, and now Baltimore.&nbsp; In each case, save for North Charleston, where local officials quickly <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2015/04/16/sharpton-visits-south-carolina-will-violence-follow">made a white cop into a sacrificial lamb</a>, the response by black &ldquo;leaders&rdquo; and their followers has been aggressive anti-police demonstrations which on occasion have degenerated into rioting.&nbsp; These civil rights paladins, unwilling to distinguish between cause and effect, have chosen to rationalize the destruction and violence.&nbsp; As blacks presumably remain victims of an unjust white-dominated society, they argue, rioting is a way of expressing unaddressed grievances.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Baltimore was a city waiting for riot to happen.&nbsp; Blacks in 2010 constituted 63 percent of the roughly 620,000 population.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s up from 24 percent in 1950 and 46 percent in 1990.&nbsp; Not unrelated, serious crime, although declining during the last couple decades (as it has in most U.S. cities), remains a major problem.&nbsp; The city is filled with black neighborhoods which, to put it gently, have seen better days.&nbsp; Two popular television series, &ldquo;Homicide:&nbsp; Life on the Street&rdquo; (NBC) and &ldquo;The Wire&rdquo; (HBO), during their respective runs, depicted the travails of cops trying to keep order in Baltimore&rsquo;s meaner precincts.&nbsp; Despite a burst of middle-class downtown residential development, many suburban Baltimore whites avoid entering the city, especially during evening hours.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s little wonder.&nbsp; In recent years, <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/were-looking-at-the-background-of-the-victim/">dozens of documented black-on-white group attacks</a> have occurred in the Inner Harbor area.&nbsp; Though four of the last five mayors have been black, as is 43 percent of the police force (including its chief), crime prevention in Baltimore is a round-the-clock job.&nbsp; Rioting in the wake of the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King set the city down an all-too-familiar path.&nbsp; Despite native son <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Donald_Schaefer">William Donald Schaefer</a> having accomplished much positive during his tenure as mayor (1971-87) before becoming Maryland governor and then the state comptroller, the breakdown of public order has been a fact of life.&nbsp; And the black underclass is driving that decline.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>That brings us to another native son, Freddie Gray. &nbsp;His death, which occurred one week after alleged acts of police brutality inside a paddy wagon, triggered rioting. &nbsp;The result was about 500 arrests, 200 destroyed businesses, and more than 100 police injuries.&nbsp; The following is <a href="http://www.wbaltv.com/news/a-look-at-the-6-officers-charged-in-freddie-grays-death/32708128">a timeline synopsis</a> of the events leading up to the riot, and the riot itself.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>It was Sunday, April 12, around 8:40 A.M., in an area of Baltimore&rsquo;s West Side known for drug dealing and violence.&nbsp; A police bicycle patrol officer working the area, Lt. Brian Rice, a white, spotted a black male, later identified as Freddie Gray, at the corner of North Avenue and Mount Street.&nbsp; Officer Rice approached Gray, and the two established eye contact.&nbsp; Gray at that point fled on foot.&nbsp; Rice and two other bike patrol cops, Garrett Miller and Edward Nero, each also white, chased Gray for two blocks and eventually caught up with him.&nbsp; In the process of making the arrest, the cops discovered a knife in Gray&#39;s possession, possibly a switchblade, clipped to the inside of his pants.&nbsp; One of the officers radioed a dispatcher to request a transport van.&nbsp; Shortly after the van arrived, a bystander made a homemade video showing two officers on top of Gray, placing their knees on his back, and then dragging his body to the van.</p>
<p>Bigger problems soon would occur on the way to the Western District precinct station.&nbsp; There would be a reported four stops on top of the one where Gray had been picked up, although an initial report indicated only three.&nbsp; Gray was not a happy camper during the roughly half-hour trip.&nbsp; The driver of the van <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/prisoner-in-van-said-freddie-gray-was-banging-against-the-walls-during-ride/2015/04/29/56d7da10-eec6-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html">described him as &ldquo;irate.&rdquo;</a>&nbsp; A search warrant application indicated that he &ldquo;<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/prisoner-in-van-said-freddie-gray-was-banging-against-the-walls-during-ride/2015/04/29/56d7da10-eec6-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html">continued to be combative in the police wagon.</a>&rdquo;&nbsp; After the second stop, the driver asked an accompanying officer to check up on Gray.&nbsp; &nbsp;The suspect was on the floor, though conscious.&nbsp; Police put him back in the seat, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/freddie-gray-injure-police-van-report-article-1.2204372">minus restraints</a>, as required by the recently revised police procedure manual.&nbsp; His wrists and ankles reportedly were shackled, but he was not belted in, a condition making him more vulnerable to an unsupportable fall.&nbsp; On the final stop, the police picked up a second arrestee.&nbsp; Upon arrival at the station, police opened the door and found Gray in the van, unconscious.&nbsp; They immediately called emergency medical technicians to the scene.&nbsp; As of 9:37 A.M., noted the medics, Gray was not breathing and was in cardiac arrest.&nbsp; He was rushed to University of Maryland Hospital shock trauma unit.&nbsp; But it was too late.&nbsp; On April 16, Gray went into a coma.&nbsp; Three days later, on April 19, he died.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Funeral services tend to be emotional affairs, especially when racial politics enter the picture.&nbsp; This particular service, a two-hour event held on Monday, April 27 at the 2,500-capacity New Shiloh Baptist Church in Baltimore, was no exception.&nbsp; Among the many persons in attendance were Reps. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., former Maryland Congressman/NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, and Jesse Jackson.&nbsp; Reverend Jackson was seated behind the presiding pastor, Reverend Jamal Bryant.&nbsp; In his eulogy, Bryant, like Jackson, proved a consummate politician.&nbsp; &ldquo;Freddie&rsquo;s death is not in vain,&rdquo; <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20150427-officer-injured-at-mall-riot-in-baltimore.ece">declared Bryant</a>.&nbsp; &ldquo;After this day, we&rsquo;re going to keep on marching.&nbsp; After this day, we&rsquo;re going to keep demanding justice.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>While most attendees came simply to mourn, some came to avenge. &nbsp;Police reported that they had received <a href="http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Baltimore-Police-Three-Gangs-Working-Together-to-Take-Out-Law-Enforcement-Officers-301437121.html">a &ldquo;credible threat&rdquo;</a> that three notorious gangs - the Crips, the Bloods and the Black Guerrilla Family - were working in tandem to &ldquo;take out&rdquo; law enforcement officers.&nbsp; Credible or not, it was undeniable that many local thugs were ready to rumble.&nbsp; A number of them decamped to the nearby Mondawmin Mall, proceeding to loot clothing and other retail stores.&nbsp; About three dozen officers were summoned to the area, firing pellets and rubber bullets.&nbsp; Many rioters communicated with friends via cell phone:&nbsp; It was payback time. &nbsp;Crowds formed throughout the city.&nbsp; While many participants were content to march and chant, others took the opportunity to vandalize and steal, setting fire to what remained.&nbsp; The warning signs were already present two days earlier, on Saturday, April 25, when dozens of blacks outside Camden Yards baseball stadium <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/04/26/video-wheelchair-bound-woman-in-path-of-baltimore-riots-thrown-projectiles/">terrorized white pedestrians and bar patrons</a> during a Baltimore Orioles home game.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Rep. Elijah Cummings, a leading member of the Congressional Black Caucus, <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20150427-officer-injured-at-mall-riot-in-baltimore.ece">led a Monday night march</a> with about 200 other persons through a freshly-trashed neighborhood to protest Gray&rsquo;s death.&nbsp; Having approached a police line in tight formation, they dropped to their knees, and then got back up on their feet and went face-to-face with the cops.&nbsp; Cummings, at 64, might have seemed an unlikely candidate for a confrontation with police, but he wasn&#39;t about to let his age, any more than his position, get in the way.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Baltimore Democratic Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (in photo), who is black, at least talked a good game.&nbsp; <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20150427-officer-injured-at-mall-riot-in-baltimore.ece">She stated</a>:&nbsp; &ldquo;Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs, who in a very senseless way, are trying to tear down what so many have fought for, tearing down businesses, tearing down and destroying property, things that we know will impact our community for years.&rdquo;&nbsp; Yet the mayor couldn&rsquo;t bring herself to take the necessary steps to preserve order.&nbsp; According to an anonymous source, on Monday <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/29/did-baltimore-mayor-stephanie-rawlings-blake-order-the-cops-to-stand-down/">she gave police a &ldquo;stand down&rdquo; order</a>, effectively denying them the authority to use force.&nbsp; The mandate, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/state-police-sergeant-says-baltimore-cops-were-told-to-stand-down/">confirmed by the sheriff of Wicomico County, Md.</a>, emboldened the rioters, many of whom pelted police with rocks and debris, injuring dozens of cops.&nbsp; Looting and arson escalated, with CVS drug stores, liquor stores and vacant police cars the preferred targets.&nbsp; On Tuesday, April, 28, Mayor Rawlings-Blake imposed a 10 P.M.-5 A.M. citywide curfew, which wound up in effect for five days.&nbsp; The curfew should not disguise her true sympathies, which are <em>not</em> with law enforcement.&nbsp; This past Wednesday, May 6, she requested that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate whether Baltimore police have engaged in a &ldquo;pattern or practice&rdquo; of excessive force.&nbsp; She explained:&nbsp; &ldquo;We all know that Baltimore continues to have a fractured relationship between the police and the community.&nbsp; I needed to look for any and all resources I could bring to my city to get this right for my community.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>The riot, by then, had been over for about a week.&nbsp; A combination of 3,000 National Guardsmen and 1,000 police officers from other jurisdictions had restored order.&nbsp; Arrests would continue, but mainly for violations of the curfew, which was lifted after five days. &ldquo;The National Guard represents the last resort in restoring order,&rdquo; <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20150427-officer-injured-at-mall-riot-in-baltimore.ece">said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan</a>, explaining his decision to call out Guard units.&nbsp; &ldquo;I have not made this decision lightly.&rdquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the wheels of criminal justice, or what passed for it, were turning.&nbsp; Maryland District Attorney Marilyn Mosby, black like Rawlings-Blake, requested a crime report from police.&nbsp; She received it on Thursday, April 30.&nbsp; Just one day later, she announced that her office, following an investigation, had filed criminal charges against six police officers.&nbsp; The charges consisted of one count of &quot;second-degree depraved heart murder&quot; (against a black officer, Caesar Goodson Jr., the driver of the van) and several counts of involuntary manslaughter, assault and misconduct in office.&nbsp; All the cops were arrested.&nbsp; As the expression goes:&nbsp; That was quick!&nbsp; The response across town to the news was joy &ndash; cheering, yelling, fist-pumping, horn-honking joy.&nbsp; That Mosby&rsquo;s actions were at once hasty and ill-advised didn&rsquo;t matter to them.&nbsp; Some bad cops, probably racist, now were in custody.&nbsp; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/02/us/freddie-gray-autopsy-report-given-to-baltimore-prosecutors.html?_r=0">As one satisfied bystander noted</a>, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no need to go tear up the city no more.&rdquo;&nbsp; Rep. Elijah Cummings was exultant.&nbsp; &ldquo;This is a great day, and I think we need to realize that,&rdquo; <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/02/us/freddie-gray-autopsy-report-given-to-baltimore-prosecutors.html?_r=0">he said</a>.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think a message has been sent by our state&rsquo;s attorney that she treasures every life, that she values every person.&rdquo;&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
<p>The Obama administration also weighed in.&nbsp; Last Tuesday, April 28, during a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, President Barack Obama digressed for several minutes to give his views about the ongoing mass lawlessness. &ldquo;There is no excuse for the kind of violence we saw yesterday,&rdquo; the president said.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is counter-productive.&nbsp; They&rsquo;re not protesting.&nbsp; They&rsquo;re not making a statement.&nbsp; They are stealing.&rdquo;&nbsp; That sounded reasonable enough.&nbsp; But then Obama shifted the focus to the protestors&rsquo; &ldquo;legitimate&rdquo; complaints. &nbsp;He admonished:&nbsp; &ldquo;One burning building will be looped on television over and over and over again, and the thousands of demonstrators who did it the right way have been lost in the discussion.&rdquo;&nbsp; The president, in other words, had no problem with visiting retribution upon potentially innocent police even as he rebuked the rioters.&nbsp; In his mind, the rioters had the right idea but promoted it the wrong way.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The day before, April 27, was the first day on the job for U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who had been nominated by Obama more than a half-year earlier.&nbsp; Like her predecessor, Eric Holder, she saw the problem as a denial of civil rights, not a city plunged into violent anarchy.&nbsp; In a prepared statement, she announced that she would send a number of Department of Justice officials, including civil rights chief Vanita Gupta, to Baltimore within several days.&nbsp; Several days before the riot, in fact, <a href="http://www.thehour.com/news/nation_and_world/us-justice-department-to-conduct-civil-rights-probe-in-baltimore/article_d3ef4f86-1ae1-5495-b5bc-18ea62fead21.html">the DOJ&nbsp; announced</a> that its Civil Rights Division and the FBI launched a probe into possible violations of Freddie Gray&rsquo;s civil rights.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>What made this a true civil rights pile-on was the appearance of the Obama White House&rsquo;s unofficial emissary to black America, Reverend Al Sharpton.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s no stranger to urban violence, having fomented or justified it for decades.&nbsp; I explained this in detail in my new book, &quot;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sharpton-Demagogues-Carl-F-Horowitz/dp/0692277803">Sharpton:&nbsp; A Demagogue&rsquo;s Rise</a>,&quot; published by National Legal and Policy Center.&nbsp; The difference between the &ldquo;new&rdquo; and the &ldquo;old&rdquo; Al Sharpton is that the new version no longer has to be a rabble-rouser to get a desired outcome, not that he can&rsquo;t revert back to old ways when the need calls for it.&nbsp; Well-connected to the highest levels of power, he knows, at least during the Obama years, that working through official channels delivers maximum results.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Even before traveling to Baltimore, in fact, on April 27, Sharpton announced tentative plans for <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/28/politics/al-sharpton-baltimore-march-freddie-gray/index.html">a two-day people&rsquo;s march from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.</a>, set for sometime in May.&nbsp; The purpose of the march, he emphasized, would be to pressure Congress and the Obama administration to take steps to combat racial bias in policing. &nbsp;In a press release, Sharpton said:&nbsp; &ldquo;The march will bring the case of Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Walter Scott and Eric Harris to the new Attorney General, Loretta Lynch.&nbsp; Ms. Lynch, in her new role that we all supported, must look and intervene in these cases.&nbsp; Justice delayed is justice denied.&rdquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>While in Baltimore, Reverend Al made his presence known.&nbsp; Upon his arrival at a civil rights summit at New Shiloh Baptist Church on April 30, three days after Gray&rsquo;s funeral, he and his bodyguards provided security for Mayor Rawlings-Blake.&nbsp; When Fox News Channel reporter Leland Vittert tried to ask the mayor some questions about her reported &ldquo;stand down&rdquo; order, <a href="http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/04/30/watch-dramatic-confrontation-between-leland-vittert-al-sharpton">Sharpton stepped in</a> and physically blocked Vittert.&nbsp; Whether or not this qualified as a scuffle, the mayor remained silent and continued to walk with Sharpton.&nbsp; The Rev said that he and the mayor would be available to answer such questions at a press conference.&nbsp; Needless to say, the press conference never happened.&nbsp; <a href="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/05/02/rev-sharpton-rally-eric-garner-freddie-gray/">But he did state at the summit</a>:&nbsp; &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t blame the mayor for what the last 50 years of mayors and governors didn&rsquo;t do.&rdquo;</p>
<p>But Sharpton has a far more ambitious agenda in mind than marches and discussions.&nbsp; In a television interview, Sharpton called for nationalizing local police departments across the U.S.&nbsp; <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/04/sharpton-to-hold-march-on-washington-to-demand-doj-takeover-of-us-police-departments/">Here&rsquo;s how the Reverend put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We need the Justice Department to step in and take over policing in this country.&nbsp; In the 20th century, we had to fight states&rsquo; rights to get the right to vote, and we got to fight states&rsquo; rights in terms of closing down police cases.&nbsp; Police must be held accountable.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t think all police are bad; I don&rsquo;t even think most are bad; but those that are need to be held accountable.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The consequences of federalizing all local police forces, at once impractical, unconstitutional and an invitation to tyranny, is a separate discussion.&nbsp; Suffice it to say, with future presidential administrations of the same cast of mind as the present one, effective policing in a context of nationalization would be made far more difficult, if not impossible, in any encounter involving a white cop and a black suspect.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Sharpton wasn&rsquo;t quite done yet.&nbsp; On Saturday, May 2, having returned to National Action Network headquarters in Harlem, Reverend Al, joined by family members of the late Eric Garner, the career petty criminal who died following an arrest by police in Staten Island, <a href="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/05/02/rev-sharpton-rally-eric-garner-freddie-gray/">held a &ldquo;rally of thanksgiving&rdquo;</a> for the charges brought forth against six Baltimore police officers.&nbsp; He said that the decision by a local grand jury not to indict any of the cops in the Garner case proved that the system isn&rsquo;t functioning.&nbsp; &ldquo;We cannot continue this random &lsquo;let&rsquo;s see what a prosecutor and a county and politics is going to do,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; Sharpton called for special prosecutors in every police brutality case nationwide (at least the ones where the suspect is black) and demanded a federal law requiring body cameras on all law enforcement officers.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Egregious as Sharpton was, he appeared almost benign compared to Maryland State&rsquo;s Attorney <a href="http://time.com/3843506/marilyn-mosby-baltimore-freddie-gray-murder-charges/">Marilyn Mosby</a>.&nbsp; Speaking at a news conference, Ms. Mosby announced:&nbsp; &ldquo;I heard your call for &lsquo;no justice, no peace.&rsquo;&nbsp; However your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of Freddie Gray.&rdquo;&nbsp; These words sound like those of a highly partial politician, not an impartial prosecutor.&nbsp; The phrase &ldquo;No justice, no peace,&rdquo; in fact, is the tag line of Rev. Sharpton&rsquo;s nonprofit group, National Action Network.&nbsp; She could not have expressed her true loyalties more plainly.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Few have paid notice to the fact that Ms. Mosby&rsquo;s husband, Nick Mosby, is a politician, a member of the Baltimore City Council (his district, in fact, encompasses the West Baltimore neighborhood where the Freddie Gray incident took place).&nbsp; <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/62604/are-marilyn-nick-mosby-new-clintons">His explanation for the rioting</a>, as expressed in an interview on Fox News Channel, came pretty close to an outright justification:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is about the social economics of poor urban America.&nbsp; These young guys are frustrated, they&rsquo;re upset and unfortunately they&rsquo;re displaying it in a very destructive manner.&nbsp; When folks are undereducated, unfortunately they don&rsquo;t have the same intellectual voice to express it the way other people do, and that&rsquo;s what we see through the violence today.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When the interviewer, the aforementioned Leland Vittert, tried to swing the discussion toward the destructive behavior of the rioters, <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/62604/are-marilyn-nick-mosby-new-clintons">Mosby reiterated</a> his ill-informed and poorly-articulated view:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The violence is wrong.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s never acceptable&hellip;There&rsquo;s a symptom of something&rsquo;s that&rsquo;s going on here, and what I&rsquo;m trying to articulate to you is that when you look at communities like this in urban America, it&rsquo;s lack of education.&nbsp; Lack of commercial development.&nbsp; Lack of opportunities.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s the socioeconomics of it.&nbsp; It has nothing to do with West Baltimore or this particular corner in Baltimore.&nbsp; This could erupt anywhere in socially-economically deprived America.&nbsp;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is nonsense.&nbsp; About that &ldquo;lack of education&rdquo; &ndash; <a href="http://www.vdare.com/posts/baltimore-second-only-to-nyc-in-spending-per-student">according to the U.S. Census Bureau</a>, the Baltimore public school system in fiscal year 2011 spent an average of $15,483 per pupil.&nbsp; This was the second-highest figure among the 100 largest school districts in the U.S. that year; only New York City, which spent $19,770 per pupil, ranked higher.&nbsp; Yet only 44 percent of Baltimore students scored &ldquo;basic or above&rdquo; in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Trial Urban District Assessment Program.&nbsp; In other words, 56 percent of Baltimore students were functionally illiterate.&nbsp; How much more money is needed to fix the problem, Councilman?&nbsp; As for &ldquo;lack of commercial development,&rdquo; the city still has plenty, but during the past week it has been running a little short.&nbsp; Rioters managed to destroy more than 200 businesses, many of them black-owned.&nbsp; Mosby has a cause-and-effect reasoning problem.&nbsp; The rioters weren&rsquo;t responding to urban despair; <em>they were creating it.</em>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Moral enablers of the riot argue that the death of Freddie Gray requires aggressive prosecution.&nbsp; To not file charges would be an injustice in itself and an inducement to further rioting. &nbsp;To &ldquo;heal&rdquo; the rift between cops and community, their argument goes, it is necessary to punish the cops, with or without sufficient evidence.&nbsp; The widespread celebration over the arrests, in this view, was fully warranted.&nbsp; Yet to sensible people, there wasn&rsquo;t much to celebrate.&nbsp; If anything, the whole case strongly suggests a rush to judgment driven by political zealotry.&nbsp; Principled adherence to rule of law seems to have been an afterthought.&nbsp; In addition, the prosecution appears to have engaged in the familiar tactic of overcharging in the hopes of inducing quick guilty pleas.&nbsp; Several considerations, taken together, should raise a red flag.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Freddie Gray, though only 25, had established himself as a career criminal.</strong> &nbsp;If ever a person served as a walking advertisement for the term &ldquo;revolving door justice,&rdquo; Gray would fit the bill. &nbsp;According to the Maryland Department of Justice, <a href="http://clashdaily.com/2015/04/freddy-grays-arrest-record-heres-the-rap-sheet-of-the-dude-theyre-destroying-baltimore-over/#">he had been arrested 18 times since July 2007</a>, mainly for drug-related offenses, not including his fateful arrest of April 12.&nbsp; Several of the drug arrests were for intent to distribute, not just simple possession.&nbsp; Eight of the 18 total apprehensions took place in 2014 or 2015.&nbsp; Of the four occurring this year, one had been for fourth-degree burglary/trespassing and another was for malicious destruction of property/second-degree assault.&nbsp; While the arrests didn&rsquo;t necessarily result in convictions, Gray often would plead guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for the prosecution dropping other, more serious charges.&nbsp; All of this kind of lends new meaning to the euphemism, &ldquo;known to police.&rdquo;</p>
<p><strong>The knife discovered by police in Gray&rsquo;s pocket may have been illegal.</strong>&nbsp; Prosecutor Mosby claims that the six Baltimore police officers had falsely arrested Gray because the knife he was carrying was legal under Maryland law.&nbsp; Yet in fact there is a distinct possibility that the knife was illegal.&nbsp; If that is the case, the charges of false imprisonment, misconduct in office, and second-degree assault would have to be dropped.&nbsp; Lawyers for one of the arrested cops, Officer Edward Nero, who was charged with a misdemeanor, filed a motion this past Monday <a href="http://metronews.ca/news/world/1360561/officer-charged-in-freddie-gray-death-contends-arrest-was-legal/">arguing that the knife indeed was illegal</a>.&nbsp; The knife in Gray&rsquo;s pocket was described in the charging documents as &ldquo;<a href="http://metronews.ca/news/world/1360561/officer-charged-in-freddie-gray-death-contends-arrest-was-legal/">a spring-assisted, one-hand operated knife</a>.&rdquo; Gray was charged under the city ordinance, which has a different definition than the state as to what constitutes a switchblade.&nbsp; The local ordinance states that any knife with an automatic spring or other device to open or close the blade is illegal.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Freddie Gray&rsquo;s spinal cord injury could have been self-inflicted.</strong>&nbsp; According to a police document, an unidentified arrestee in the paddy wagon carrying Gray to the precinct station, later identified as <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/prisoner-in-van-said-freddie-gray-was-banging-against-the-walls-during-ride/2015/04/29/56d7da10-eec6-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html">Donta Allen</a>, stated for the record that Gray &ldquo;was intentionally trying to injure himself.&rdquo;&nbsp; The two prisoners, though separated by a metal partition and thus unable to observe each other during their six-block ride together, were able to listen to each other&rsquo;s words and actions.&nbsp; And what Allen, 22, heard from Freddie Gray was a commotion.&nbsp; Gray, he said, was &ldquo;banging against the walls.&rdquo;&nbsp; A lawyer for Gray&rsquo;s family, Jason Downs, says that the family disagrees &ldquo;with any implication that Freddie Gray severed his own spinal cord.&rdquo;&nbsp; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/prisoner-in-van-said-freddie-gray-was-banging-against-the-walls-during-ride/2015/04/29/56d7da10-eec6-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html">Allen later changed his story.</a>&nbsp; Yet nobody thus far has been able to verify how Gray sustained his injuries.&nbsp; Police officers have asserted that Gray turned highly unruly inside the van &ndash; so unruly, in fact, that they had to put him in leg irons.&nbsp; Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, who is black, has acknowledged that police on the scene may have ignored Gray&rsquo;s pleas for medical help and neglected to buckle him up.&nbsp; But that doesn&rsquo;t eliminate the possibility that Gray&rsquo;s wounds, intentionally or not, were self-inflicted.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Outside legal experts have criticized the prosecutions.</strong>&nbsp; Harvard law professor, appellate attorney and popular book author Alan Dershowitz, one of the sharpest legal minds in the country, <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/alan-dershowitz-rips-charges-against-baltimore-cops-sad-day-for-justice/">puts it this way</a>:&nbsp; &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no plausible, hypothetical, conceivable case for murder under the facts as we now know them.&rdquo;&nbsp; He predicted that the prosecutions would not yield any guilty pleas, and if they did, they would be overturned on appeal.&nbsp; Andy Alperstein, a Baltimore attorney who has represented police officers in the past but is not involved in this case, <a href="http://metronews.ca/news/world/1360561/officer-charged-in-freddie-gray-death-contends-arrest-was-legal/">focusing on Gray&rsquo;s knife, said</a>:&nbsp; &ldquo;If the facts were that the knife was illegal, then the Gray arrest would be justified.&nbsp; Even if it wasn&rsquo;t illegal and the officers acted in good faith, it would be the same result.&nbsp; All charges fail.&rdquo;</p>
<p><strong>Marilyn Mosby may be seriously compromised in her loyalties.</strong>&nbsp; Baltimore&rsquo;s police union is accusing Ms. Mosby of having a &ldquo;close relationship&rdquo; with Gray family attorney William H. &ldquo;Billy&rdquo; Murphy.&nbsp; As reported in various media outlets, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/who-is-baltimore-states-attorney-marilyn-j-mosby/2015/05/01/12be80e2-f013-11e4-8abc-d6aa3bad79dd_story.html">Murphy contributed $5,000</a> to Mosby&rsquo;s successful campaign for State&rsquo;s Attorney last fall.&nbsp; He also was part of her transition team.&nbsp; At the very least, this amounts to a potential conflict of interest.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>So where does this leave us?&nbsp; It may well be that the defendants violated certain police handbook procedures.&nbsp; But discipline in this case would involve administrative rather than legal action.&nbsp; And building a convincing case, especially against six persons, necessarily takes far longer than one day.&nbsp; The prosecution by Marilyn Mosby&rsquo;s office gives every appearance of a fevered rush to judgment with aggressive overcharging.&nbsp; Her likely intent, under the guise of &ldquo;justice,&rdquo; was to placate violent mobs, all the while affirming their goal.&nbsp; Attorneys for the police, by contrast, are confident that this case will collapse.&nbsp; &ldquo;These officers will be vindicated because they have done nothing wrong,&rdquo; <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/freddie-grays-death-ruled-homicide-states-attorney/story?id=30728026">said Michael Davey</a>, an attorney for one of the accused officers, at a May 1 news conference.&nbsp; &ldquo;No officer injured Mr. Gray or caused harm to Mr. Gray, and they are truly saddened by his death.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Peace, or at least the appearance of it, has returned to Baltimore.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s even okay for hometown fans to attend Orioles games.&nbsp; But this period may be the calm before another storm.&nbsp; For if the officers prefer to take their chances at trial, and win, the destroyers will be instantly primed for another riot.&nbsp; Even if the defendants are convicted, the street warriors will insist on severe sentences &ndash; or else.&nbsp; Moreover, if the case goes to trial, the venue is likely to be outside of the City of Baltimore in light of the prosecution&rsquo;s apparent lack of objectivity.&nbsp; Recall that the 1992 trial of the four Los Angeles police officers accused of beating a fleeing black criminal suspect, Rodney King, took place in not in Los Angeles County, but in nearby Ventura County, for much the same reason.&nbsp; In South Central Los Angeles, immediately following the informed jury verdict of &ldquo;not guilty,&rdquo; black gangs and their supporters went on a looting and arson rampage for several days.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
<p>Hovering over the proceedings is Reverend Al Sharpton.&nbsp; He has made this case yet another cause c&eacute;l&egrave;bre to promote his selective and blinkered idea of &ldquo;justice.&rdquo;&nbsp; He&rsquo;s too smart of a politician to openly advocate rioting, of course.&nbsp; To do so would be to end his wholly undeserved newfound public image as a peacemaker and bridge-builder.&nbsp; That said, he can be counted on to offer rationalizations for rioting, in the process making more likely additional rioting.&nbsp; Sharpton has a presidential administration, and various state and local officials, on his side.&nbsp; If his planned Baltimore-to-Washington march materializes, things could get ugly long before any trial.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2015/04/16/sharpton-visits-south-carolina-will-violence-follow">Sharpton Visits South Carolina; Will Violence Follow?</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2015/03/20/police-shootings-ferguson-bear-mark-holder-sharpton">Police Shootings in Ferguson Bear Mark of Holder, Sharpton</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2014/08/15/sharpton-creates-tension-wake-st-louis-area-rioting">Sharpton Creates Tension in Wake of St. Louis-Area Rioting</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/07/24/obama-holder-sharpton-misrepresent-facts-trayvon-martin-case-seek-federal-charges">Obama, Holder, Sharpton Misrepresent Facts in Trayvon Martin Case; Seek Federal Charges</a></p>
Al SharptonBaltimoreBarack Obamacivil rightsCongressional Black CaucusElijah CummingsFreddie GrayGovernment Integrity ProjectJamal BryantJesse JacksonLoretta LynchMarilyn MosbyNick MosbyriotsStephanie Rawlings-BlakeFri, 08 May 2015 19:12:12 +0000Carl Horowitz5165 at http://nlpc.orgIntel Succumbs to Jesse Jackson 'Diversity' Campaignhttp://nlpc.org/stories/2015/03/26/intel-succumbs-jesse-jackson-diversity-campaign
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.nlpc.org/files/JesseJacksonVanJonesIntel.jpg" style="width: 300px; float: right; height: 232px" />For a&nbsp;first-hand lesson in the&nbsp;timidity of corporate America,&nbsp;look no further than Intel Corp.&nbsp; This January, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/01/06/intel-diversity-brian-krzanich-keynote-ces-2015/21361475/">announced it would set aside $300 million by 2020</a> for hiring, training and promoting &ldquo;underrepresented&rdquo; racial minorities and women.&nbsp; Intel CEO Brian Krzanich revealed the plan at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas only weeks after he and other top company officials had met privately with Jesse Jackson.&nbsp; The announcement was a triumph for <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2014/05/29/jesse-jackson-takes-shakedown-campaign-silicon-valley-extracts-concessions-timid-">Jackson&rsquo;s Silicon Valley shakedown campaign</a>.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a huge first step,&rdquo; he declared, urging other tech firms to follow suit.&nbsp; Given the acquiescence of eBay, Google and Facebook to Jackson at shareholder meetings last May, it is no surprise those companies are doing just that.</p>
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<p>National Legal and Policy Center long has shone a spotlight on Jesse Jackson.&nbsp; The Chicago-based civil-rights hustler and former presidential candidate, through his nonprofit Rainbow/PUSH, has built a lucrative career in bullying corporations into instituting affirmative action goals, quotas and timetables &ndash; or to use the preferred term, &ldquo;diversity.&rdquo;&nbsp; Like his New York City counterpart, Al Sharpton, Jackson confronts white executives of a given company; demands they divert resources toward blacks; and threatens a boycott, a lawsuit or other hostile act if his target doesn&rsquo;t cooperate.&nbsp; Usually, the target does cooperate, and with a generous &ldquo;contribution&rdquo; to Rainbow/PUSH or the Jackson-controlled Citizenship Education Fund.&nbsp; Toyota, Anheuser-Busch and PepsiCo are but a few of the companies over the years who have reached historic &ldquo;agreements&rdquo; with Jackson.&nbsp; For him, only lingering white racism, or apathy to it, stands in the way of achieving social justice.</p>
<p>Last March, Jackson kicked off his Silicon Valley diversity campaign by leading a delegation into Hewlett-Packard&rsquo;s annual shareholder meeting, where he skewered the company for its allegedly discriminatory practices.&nbsp; Two months later, he took his act to shareholder conventions of eBay, Google and Facebook.&nbsp; Jackson was indignant that these (and other) information technology leaders hadn&rsquo;t done enough to hire, retain, train and promote blacks and other &ldquo;people of color.&rdquo;&nbsp; Qualified individuals from such &ldquo;underrepresented&rdquo; groups can be found, he insisted, if employers made the effort to find them.&nbsp; &ldquo;The &lsquo;we can&rsquo;t find them&rsquo; syndrome is a thing of the past,&rdquo; Jackson badgered Facebook management and shareholders.&nbsp; &ldquo;Who is looking?&nbsp; And where are &lsquo;they&rsquo; looking?&nbsp; We can find them, if we look in the right places.&rdquo;&nbsp; Jackson was operating on the assumption that being a member of a minority group constitutes a right to a job offer.&nbsp; Conveniently, he left ethnic Asians out of the equation.&nbsp; Though a minority, Asians constitute a much higher percentage share of the Silicon Valley labor force than of the overall U.S. labor force.&nbsp; He could not bring himself to ask why Asians came to be &ldquo;overrepresented.&rdquo;&nbsp; For all intents and purposes, Jackson was pushing the envelope on behalf of fellow blacks, and secondarily, Hispanics.</p>
<p>Education, skills, experience and character presumably are the most crucial traits of a successful work force.&nbsp; Moreover, the employer, and not an outside force, would seem to reserve the right to set hiring, promotion and other personnel criteria.&nbsp; Jesse Jackson sees things differently.&nbsp; Ever on the lookout for &ldquo;discrimination,&rdquo; intentional or not, he will pounce on any company supposedly guilty of it.&nbsp; Over the last year, Jackson has made the nation&rsquo;s information technology industry the focus of his indignation.&nbsp; His latest target is Intel Corp., the world&rsquo;s largest manufacturer of semiconductor chips, expanding as of late into <a href="http://pulse.ng/tech/ces-2015-intel-unveils-button-size-wearable-computer-id3393318.html">wearable</a> and <a href="http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2015/03/exploring-microsofts-foray-intel-wireless-display-widi/">mobile</a> devices, and <a href="http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2015/03/gdc-2015/">video games</a>.&nbsp; With a worldwide workforce of more than 100,000, the company makes for a target-rich environment.&nbsp; Last December, Jackson sat down with top company executives to hector them for not doing more to hire, train and promote nonwhites, and impose such a regime upon suppliers.&nbsp; Having been properly tutored, Intel, with an apparently unacceptable <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2882652/what-intels-300-million-diversity-pledge-really-means.html">24 percent female and 4 percent black work force</a>, responded the next month with public groveling.</p>
<p>On the evening of January 6, Intel Corp. CEO Brian Krzanich, delivering the keynote address at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, announced that his company was pledging $300 million through 2020 to fund the hiring, training, retention and promotion of women and underrepresented minorities.&nbsp; Most of that money would come out of existing diversity programs, though some funds would be diverted from other activities.&nbsp; This &ldquo;Parity 2020&rdquo; initiative, Krzanich emphasized, is about inclusion.&nbsp; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s time to step up and do more.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not good enough to say we value diversity,&rdquo; <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/01/06/intel-diversity-brian-krzanich-keynote-ces-2015/21361475/">he proclaimed</a>.&nbsp; He stated that executive compensation would be tied to progress in reaching numerical goals.&nbsp; By early this year, Intel had created <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2882652/what-intels-300-million-diversity-pledge-really-means.html">nearly 60 &ldquo;diversity&rdquo; metrics</a> corresponding to race, sex and other traits.&nbsp; Overseeing the proceedings from his front row seat was Jesse Jackson.&nbsp; A little over a week after the Las Vegas event, Krzanich, accompanied by Jackson and noted black radical <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Jones">Van Jones</a> (see photo), showed up at the 18th Annual Rainbow/PUSH Wall Street Project Economic Summit, <a href="http://www.blackenterprise.com/technology/rainbow-push-economic-summit-tech-wrap-up-intel-diversity-300-million/">where he reiterated his pledge</a>.</p>
<p>Intel Chief Diversity Officer <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/article/2882554/what-intels-300m-diversity-pledge-really-means.html">Roz Hudnell</a> is the point person for the company&rsquo;s demographic transformation program.&nbsp; She stated at the Economic Summit that the campaign is good for the company&rsquo;s balance sheets because more females will want to play video games and more minorities will want to form gaming teams. &nbsp;That would seem a thin justification for coaxing an entire corporation into Embracing Diversity in cult-like fashion.&nbsp; Hudnell also issued an implicit threat toward dissenters within the company.&nbsp; In a recent interview with PC World magazine, <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2882652/what-intels-300-million-diversity-pledge-really-means.html">she summarized the new hiring policy</a>:&nbsp; &ldquo;You have people who by nature make decisions in favor of people like them, and when the majority of the workforce is men, then you have to put [managers] in place to ensure women have equal access to opportunity.&rdquo;&nbsp; She noted in the interview that this policy will extend to Intel&rsquo;s investments in women- and minority-owned companies.&nbsp; &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be very clear and transparent about what we&rsquo;re looking for,&rdquo; Hudnell said.&nbsp; &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have a diverse advisory board that will probably make those decisions.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It isn&rsquo;t just Intel that is capitulating to Jesse Jackson.&nbsp; The three tech corporations whom Jesse Jackson scolded last May &ndash; eBay, Google and Facebook &ndash; each subsequently stepped up their already considerable affirmative action programs. &nbsp;Let us summarize.</p>
<p><strong>eBay.</strong>&nbsp; Last July 31, e-commerce leader eBay published an annual report on its progress in meeting diversity goals.&nbsp; The company&rsquo;s domestic workforce composition broke down this way:&nbsp; white (61 percent); Asian (24 percent); black (7 percent); Hispanic (5 percent); and other/multi-racial (2 percent).&nbsp; And its global sex, er&hellip;gender breakdown was 58 percent male and 42 percent female.&nbsp; <a href="http://www.ebayinc.com/in_the_news/story/building-stronger-better-more-diverse-ebay">The accompanying statement</a>, a typical mix of self-flagellation and self-congratulation, reads almost like a parody of diversity consultants&rsquo; monitoring report:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As our data shows, we have made progress in some&nbsp; areas.&nbsp; But&nbsp;we still have much work to do.</p>
<p>While we are committed to fostering all types of diversity, increasing the number of women in leadership roles has been an early focus.&nbsp; About three years ago, eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahue launched our Women&rsquo;s Initiative Network (WIN).&nbsp; The mission of WIN is to attract and engage women to build lasting, successful careers in the company.&nbsp; Through WIN, we have more than doubled the number of women in leadership roles and increased the share of leadership positions held by women.&nbsp; And we have continued to expand WIN around the world.&nbsp; Supporting our commitment to women, we maintain partnerships with the Anita Borg Institute and Lean In.&nbsp; And we leverage insights from the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, as well as from leading academics.&nbsp; In various leadership forums, we provide ongoing diversity and inclusion training, including gender diversity and unconscious bias.</p>
<p>Support for our LGBT workforce also has been a strong commitment.&nbsp; We are honored to have received a perfect score of 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign&rsquo;s Corporate Equality Index (CEI) every year since 2009.&nbsp; We actively recruit from the LGBT community and we provide progressive benefits.&nbsp; And we publicly advocate for equal rights for same-sex couples&hellip;</p>
<p>In common with others in our industry, we continue to work hard to recruit skilled technologists from diverse backgrounds.&nbsp; We use career sites including Black Planet, Black Women Connect, African-American Careers, National Society of Hispanic MBAs and several others.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This Celebration of Diversity somehow did not earn kudos from the mainstream press.&nbsp; Time magazine tech/culture columnist Eliana Dockterman, after praising eBay for employing more women, blacks and Hispanics than its peers in a tech industry &ldquo;notoriously dominated by white and Asian men,&rdquo; <a href="http://time.com/3068015/ebay-diversity-women-blacks-hispanics/">scolded the firm</a> for its &ldquo;huge gender gap&rdquo; in leadership positions (28% for women) and lack of blacks and Hispanics (2% for each).&nbsp; In the land where Diversity rules, no good deed goes unpunished.</p>
<p><strong>Google.</strong>&nbsp; Having been dressed down by Jesse Jackson at its shareholder meeting at Mountain View, Calif. headquarters, Google announced its intent to release company &ldquo;diversity&rdquo; numbers. &nbsp;It followed through soon enough.&nbsp; On the company blog site, Laszlo Bock, Google vice president for people operations, <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/getting-to-work-on-diversity-at-google.html">posted this message on May 28</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We&rsquo;ve always been reluctant to publish numbers about the diversity of our workforce at Google.&nbsp; We now realize we were wrong, and that it&rsquo;s time to be candid about the issues.&nbsp; Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity, and it&rsquo;s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you&rsquo;re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bock then provided the numbers.&nbsp; Men outnumbered women 70 percent to 30 percent.&nbsp; Whites and Asians, respectively, comprised 61 percent and 30 percent of all employees, whereas blacks and Hispanics made up a respective 2 percent and 3 percent. &nbsp;To rectify this &ldquo;problem,&rdquo; as the blog described it, the company is investing heavily in education:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are lots of reasons why technology companies like Google struggle to recruit and retain women and minorities.&nbsp; For example, women earn roughly 18 percent of all computer science degrees in the United States.&nbsp; Blacks and Hispanics each make up under 10 percent of U.S. college grads and each collect fewer than 10 percent of degrees in CS majors.&nbsp; So we&rsquo;ve invested a lot of time and energy in education.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Among other things, since 2010 we&rsquo;ve given more than $40 million to organizations working to bring computer science education to women and girls.&nbsp; And we&rsquo;ve been working with historically black colleges and universities to elevate coursework and attendance in computer science.&nbsp; For example, this year Google engineer Charles Pratt was in-residence at Howard University, where he revamped the school&rsquo;s Intro to CS curriculum.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Facebook.</strong>&nbsp; Last June, only weeks after Jesse Jackson inflicted himself upon the Facebook shareholder meeting in Redwood City, Calif., the company responded by releasing a diversity progress report.&nbsp; Males, the report stated, constituted 53 percent of team members and 77 percent of senior-level employees.&nbsp; As for race, technical employees broke down as:&nbsp; white (53 percent); Asian (41 percent); Hispanic (3 percent); and black (1 percent).&nbsp; For non-technical employees, the figures were:&nbsp; white (63 percent); Asian (24 percent); Hispanic (6 percent); and black (2 percent).&nbsp; And for senior-level personnel, the numbers were:&nbsp; white (74 percent); Asian (19 percent); Hispanic (4 percent); and black (2 percent).</p>
<p>Were the multicultural bean counters satisfied?&nbsp; At least Asians &ndash; all of them &ldquo;people of color&rdquo; &ndash; were heavily represented.&nbsp; Yet one bean counter, Josh Constine, wasn&rsquo;t satisfied.&nbsp; Constine, a blogger for techcrunch.com, <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/25/facebook-diversity/">weighed in with this prim rebuke</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Facebook has just released its employee diversity report, and here&rsquo;s our chart comparing it to Google, Yahoo, and LinkedIn.&nbsp; While you could conclude that Facebook is a bit more diverse than Google and bit less than the others, they all get an &ldquo;F&rdquo; for being heavily skewed male, white and Asian&hellip;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Constine was willing to give credit where it was due, unwittingly exposing just how much the company has acquiesced to people like him:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Facebook outlined a number of initiatives its Strategic Diversity team has been working on to enhance equality amongst genders and ethnicities.&nbsp; Facebook University is a program that provides undergraduate freshmen from underrepresented groups with internships at Facebook.&nbsp; It has partnerships with Girls Who Code, Code 2040, the National Society of Black Engineers, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and Management Leadership for Tomorrow.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s working with Yes We Code to help connect 100,000 &ldquo;low opportunity youth&rdquo; to computer programming education programs.</p>
<p>Facebook also provides unconscious bias training to employees to help them nullify racism and sexism they may be expressing without knowing it.&nbsp; It also has an inclusive benefits program that aids employees across the sexual preference spectrum, and Employee Resource Groups that helps support employees from different ethnic backgrounds, the LGBTQ community, and military veterans.</p>
<p>Blaming these companies isn&rsquo;t the answer, though.&nbsp; While hiring practices could certainly improve, they&rsquo;re dealing with systemic inequality.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For sheer insufferableness, Josh Constine may be worse than Jesse Jackson.&nbsp; If nothing else, he&rsquo;d fit right in at Facebook or anywhere else in Silicon Valley as a diversity and inclusion monitor.</p>
<p>Can other Silicon Valley companies, from LinkedIn to Yahoo, resist the pull of such warped activism?&nbsp; Most likely they won&rsquo;t.&nbsp; It has become almost axiomatic:&nbsp; The larger the corporation, the more vulnerable a target it presents for a boycott or a lawsuit, and thus the more likely it is to grovel before its accusers.&nbsp; Jesse Jackson has been a major catalyst in creating this situation and a major beneficiary of it.&nbsp; He and Rainbow/PUSH colleagues, having no idea how to run a for-profit information technology enterprise, or indeed <em>any</em> enterprise, are more than eager to enlighten corporate officials as to their public duties.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Yet the problem is far larger than Jesse Jackson.&nbsp; For even if he and every other radical black identity politician were to retire today, the culture of ethno-racial and sexual egalitarianism would remain in place.&nbsp; The problem is also diversity divisions within corporations, and diversity consultants outside corporations, whose mission it is to intimidate company management and employees into revealing their own ostensibly unconscious &ldquo;biases.&rdquo;&nbsp; It&rsquo;s the &ldquo;civil rights&rdquo; lawyers at the Justice Department and other federal agencies, champing at the bit for a pretext to file massive disparate impact lawsuits.&nbsp; And it&rsquo;s the legions of hard-Left bloggers, each as smug and intolerant as the next, who delight in exposing the racism, sexism and homophobia supposedly underlying every statistical irregularity in American life.</p>
<p>Back in 2007, I wrote a Special Report for National Legal and Policy Center titled, &ldquo;<a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/05/06/special-report-authoritarian-roots-corporate-diversity-training-jane-elliotts-cap">The Authoritarian Roots of Corporate Diversity Training:&nbsp; Jane Elliott&rsquo;s Captive Eyes and Minds</a>.&rdquo;&nbsp; The report explained how major American companies, partly out of fear of lawsuits and partly out of Stockholm Syndrome-style bonding with their accusers, are becoming centers of radicalism.&nbsp; Convinced of the need to root out subconscious biases that ostensibly inhibit company teamwork, corporate executives are forcing infantalizing grade school-level instruction upon employees, while blocking job opportunities for qualified white males.&nbsp; When people like Jesse Jackson say &ldquo;jump,&rdquo; businessmen typically respond, &ldquo;How high?&rdquo;&nbsp; Here&rsquo;s an alternative response:&nbsp; &ldquo;Get lost.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2014/05/29/jesse-jackson-takes-shakedown-campaign-silicon-valley-extracts-concessions-timid-">Silicon Valley Capitulates to Jesse Jackson Shakedown</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/11/29/obama-set-unleash-lawsuits-mandate-racial-preferences">Obama Set to Unleash Lawsuits to Mandate Racial Preferences</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/06/08/weekly-standard-exposes-corporate-diversity-obsession">Weekly Standard Updates State of Corporate &lsquo;Diversity&rsquo; Obsession</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/05/06/special-report-authoritarian-roots-corporate-diversity-training-jane-elliotts-cap">The Authoritarian Roots of Corporate Diversity Training</a><br />
&nbsp;</p>
Brian KrzanichCorporate Integrity Projectcorporate shakedownsdiversityeBayFacebookGoogleIntelJesse JacksonJosh ConstineLaszlo BockRoz HudnellSilicon ValleyThu, 26 Mar 2015 22:06:37 +0000Carl Horowitz5126 at http://nlpc.orgNASCAR Asked to End Sharpton Support in Wake of Ferguson Police Shootingshttp://nlpc.org/stories/2015/03/16/nascar-asked-end-sharpton-support-wake-ferguson-police-shootings
<p><img alt="" src="http://nlpc.org/files/Sharpton Ferguson.jpg" style="width: 350px; float: right; height: 175px;" />I have sent this letter to Brian France, Chief Executive Office of NASCAR:</p>
<p>We ask that NASCAR end its financial support of Al Sharpton and his organization, the National Action Network (NAN).&nbsp;</p>
<p>According to programs for the NAN national convention, NASCAR has served as a sponsor of the event in recent years, which is Sharpton&rsquo;s primary annual fundraising event.</p>
<p>The cold-blooded murder of two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, followed weeks of Sharpton&rsquo;s vilification of law enforcement personnel. Now two police officers have been gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri.</p>
<!--break-->
<p>This is not the first time that violence and loss of life have followed Sharpton&rsquo;s agitation, such as in the 1991 Crown Heights riots and the 1995 Freddy&rsquo;s Fashion Mart incident. Sharpton&rsquo;s involvement in these and other abhorrent episodes, such as the Tawana Brawley hoax, are a matter of record.</p>
<p>I have enclosed a new book titled <em>Sharpton: A Demagogue&rsquo;s Rise</em> by Dr. Carl Horowitz of our staff. It contains specific details of Sharpton&rsquo;s history of inciting violence, anti-Semitism, and lawlessness.</p>
<p>If another reason is needed for NASCAR to cut off Sharpton, it is the financial irregularities that have characterized Sharpton&rsquo;s nonprofit groups, for-profit companies, and political campaigns. Indeed, Sharpton was fined $285,000 by the Federal Election Commission as a result of Complaints filed by the National Legal and Policy Center.</p>
<p>According to the <em>New York Times</em> and other sources, NAN has failed to pay millions of dollars in taxes. NASCAR may purport that its support of NAN is used to promote &ldquo;civil rights,&rdquo; but Sharpton himself has admitted that current NAN revenues are being used to pay years-old tax obligations.</p>
<p>NASCAR would not tolerate such a lack of financial accountability from any other grant recipient, vendor, business partner or sponsor.</p>
<p>Other corporations support NAN, and we are making the same request of them, but police officers, and other law enforcement personnel, play a special role in NASCAR operations. Without the security and crowd control they provide to NASCAR, racing would not be possible. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of law enforcement personnel are NASCAR fans.</p>
<p>Mr. France, police lives matter. You can demonstrate your support for law enforcement by ending your support for Sharpton without delay. END LETTER</p>
<p>NLPC previously has engaged NASCAR on its support for &ldquo;civil rights&rdquo; activists, an engagement characterized by bad faith on NASCAR&rsquo;s part.</p>
<p>In 2003, NLPC organized and led a widely publicized protest of NASCAR&rsquo;s support for Jesse Jackson&#39;s organizations. NLPC mobilized thousands of NASCAR fans and other citizens. The campaign enjoyed almost daily media coverage until July 29, 2003 when <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/motor/nascar/2003-07-28-jackson-support_x.htm"><em>USA Today</em> reported</a> that NASCAR had cut off Jackson.</p>
<p>This story apparently was a ruse&nbsp;because the support continued. NASCAR sponsored a luncheon at the 2004 Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and Citizenship Education Fund Annual Conference in Chicago on July 29, 2004.</p>
<p>When I called NASCAR on it, a spokesman denied that it had sponsored the luncheon. I then released <a href="http://nlpc.org/files/JacksonEatsNASCARsLunch.pdf">photographs</a>&nbsp;that I took at the event. Among the photos is a shot of a large screen that reads: SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPORTS LUNCHEON SPONSOR: NASCAR.</p>
<p>Our campaign did have one positive result. In apparent response, NASCAR launched a minority-outreach program called &ldquo;Drive for Diversity,&rdquo; which did not involve Jesse Jackson. At the time I said, &ldquo;I welcome what NASCAR is doing. I am gratified NASCAR has taken our advice.&rdquo; In interview after interview in 2003, I criticized NASCAR for &ldquo;paying off&rdquo; Jackson, instead of supporting real minority recruitment and training.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2015/02/26/hidden-video-captures-eric-garner-daughter-blasting-sharpton">Hidden Video Captures Eric Garner Daughter Blasting Sharpton</a></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2014/12/22/walmart-asked-stop-bankrolling-sharpton-after-new-york-police-murders">Walmart Asked to Stop Bankrolling Sharpton After New York Police Murders</a></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2014/10/06/sharptons-60th-birthday-bash-generates-1m-accolades">Corporations Bankroll Sharpton&#39;s 60th Birthday Bash</a></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2014/08/15/sharpton-creates-tension-wake-st-louis-area-rioting">Sharpton Creates Tension in Wake of St. Louis-Area Rioting</a></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/07/24/obama-holder-sharpton-misrepresent-facts-trayvon-martin-case-seek-federal-charges">Obama, Holder Sharpton Misrepresent Facts in Trayvon Martin Case; Seek Federal Charges</a></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2014/04/08/al-sharpton-revealed-fbi-mob-sting-informant">Al Sharpton Revealed as FBI Mob Sting Informant</a></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/02/sharpton-annual-conference-again-heavily-corporate-funded">Sharpton Annual Conference Again Heavily Corporate-Funded</a></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 17px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/04/19/sharpton-fined-285k-fec-result-nlpc-complaint">Sharpton Fined $285K by FEC as Result of NLPC Complaint</a></p>
Al SharptonBrian FranceCorporate Integrity ProjectFergusonJesse JacksonMissouriNANNASCARNational Action NetworkNational Association of Stock Car Auto Racingpolice murderpolice shootingShakedownTue, 17 Mar 2015 09:01:03 +0000Peter Flaherty5118 at http://nlpc.orgSilicon Valley Capitulates to Jesse Jackson Shakedownhttp://nlpc.org/stories/2014/05/29/jesse-jackson-takes-shakedown-campaign-silicon-valley-extracts-concessions-timid-
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/jesse.jpg" border="0" alt="Jesse Jackson" width="225" height="239" /></p>
<p>In the sixth year of the presidency of an African-American,&nbsp;long after Jesse Jackson, Sr. should be seen as relevant to anything,&nbsp;some of the largest companies&nbsp;in California's&nbsp;Silicon Valley are&nbsp;resuscitating his career as tribute artist.&nbsp;Jackson once again is&nbsp;resorting to his&nbsp;anachronistic but&nbsp;apparently still effective tactic of issuing&nbsp;an ultimatum for&nbsp;"diversity," giving&nbsp;a company&nbsp;a choice: 1) orient&nbsp;hiring, marketing and other activities to&nbsp;favor nonwhites; or 2) get ready for a boycott, picketing, a lawsuit or other bad publicity. Though it has been a number of years&nbsp;since he has&nbsp;pulled&nbsp;this off, this May he gave information&nbsp;technology industry titans the full Jesse&nbsp;treatment&nbsp;- and on their own turf. At shareholder meetings of eBay, Google and Facebook, Jackson issued aggressive calls to hire blacks and other "people of color," especially for top&nbsp;positions.<!--break-->&nbsp;Two months earlier he had brought his shakedown campaign to Hewlett-Packard. The response from each company&nbsp;was either silence or&nbsp;capitulation.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Jesse Jackson, popularly known as Rev. Jesse Jackson, now 72, more than anyone this side of Al Sharpton, embodies the spirit of intimidation that passes for "civil rights" in this country. Through his Chicago-based nonprofit organization Rainbow/PUSH, Jackson for decades has fused black identity politics, socialist economics and Biblically-tinged universalistic moralizing to promote his idea of social justice. His mix of charisma and menace, rendered in a street preacher's cadence, has cultivated a large contingent of followers. Long a dominant player on the Democratic Party Left - he ran for President in 1984 and in 1988 - Jackson is a master of the business shakedown. When he speaks, white executives listen. For they know that he can make life very rough if they don't "cooperate." Corporate leaders from Anheuser-Busch to Toyota have acceded to his demands, agreeing to earmark large sums of money for minority hiring and outreach. Moreover, they typically make sizable donations to Rainbow/PUSH, thus making possible future shakedowns. Often as well they set aside a certain portion of their contracting to minority-owned firms that pay Jackson for referrals. Jackson's style can be called affirmative action with a clenched fist. And because of white executive timorousness, it gets results.</p>
<p>The information technology industry for a good number of years - and especially this year - has been one of Jesse Jackson's favorite targets. It is huge, growing, and drives economies the world over. Rainbow/PUSH well over a decade ago established a Silicon Valley Project office. There is money, potentially billions of dollars, to be extracted on behalf of minority groups ostensibly "excluded" from tech industry employment and from the larger American society. Whether such concessions actually benefit the company in question is at best of secondary importance. Jackson is a power broker. His specialty is hardball politics on behalf of racial minorities, most of all, blacks. To the extent he cares about the nature and function of corporations, it is in hopes of shaming them. To soften up his targets, he often uses the disingenuous language of "fairness" and "togetherness." When it comes to bullying white executives, he knows from experience that most eventually will fold like a cheap suit.</p>
<p>Jackson took his&nbsp;moral theater on the road this month to&nbsp;the annual shareholder meetings of some major Silicon Valley-based IT firms. <a href="http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Jesse-Jackson-in-Silicon-Valley-Continues-Push-to-Diversify-Tech-259084621.html">First stop: eBay.</a> The online auction and shopping website, with gross revenues last year of more than $16 billion and a worldwide work force of about 33,000, held its convention in San Jose on Tuesday morning, May 13. Jesse made his presence felt. He urged company officials to raise the profile of racial minorities in hiring for the executive suites and in contracting. The next day, May 14, he hectored officials of Google at their headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. about their alleged lack of diversity. He demanded that Google release race-based workforce data as a means of boosting black and other minority employment. And on May 24, Jackson and his entourage were&nbsp;in Redwood City, Calif., site of this year's Facebook shareholder meeting. With Facebook Chairman/CEO Mark Zuckerberg, CFO David Ebersman and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg looking on, Jackson denounced the company for its "patterns of exclusion." <a href="http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2014/5/26/reverend_jesse_l_jackson_sr_remarks.htm">The following is a lengthy excerpt:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>I speak to you today representing the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, about the need to open up a new era of growth and inclusion of African-Americans, Latinos and other people of color in Silicon Valley's technology industry. Inclusion leads to growth, and when there is growth, everybody wins.</p>
<p>Facebook is uniquely positioned to lead this new era. We won't know how good Silicon Valley can be until everyone can participate.</p>
<p>All we ask is that everyone plays by one set of rules, and that there is an even playing field for all. It's the moral imperative.</p>
<p>We want mutually beneficial, two-way trade. We share consumer patterns together; pay taxes together; we serve in the military together to keep our nation secure. We should share in America's opportunity and growth together. Bit today there is an imbalance; too much one-way trade, too many gaps. We have money market talent and location. You have technology, expertise and resources. We can all win. Let's close the gaps.</p>
<p>African-Americans and people of color comprise a huge and growing part of your customer base. In a short period of time, minorities will comprise the new majority population of California.</p>
<p>Technology is supposed to be about inclusion, but sadly, patterns of exclusion remain the order of the day. Let me state some facts:</p>
<p>ZERO blacks on boards and in the C-suites.</p>
<p>Tech powerhouses including Facebook, Apple and Google, and new media companies like Twitter - have ZERO blacks on their board of directors.</p>
<p>In the C-suites, Facebook, like Twitter, Apple and far too many other Silicon Valley and technology firms have ZERO African-Americans or Latinos on their senior executive leadership teams.</p>
<p>Just as women leaders are now making some headway - like Sheryl (Sandberg) and Marissa Mayer at Yahoo - companies like Facebook must build a pipeline wherein African-Americans and people of color to lean in and move up, too. The "we can't find them" syndrome is a thing of the past. Who is looking? And where are "they" looking? We can find them, if we look in the right places. Facebook and other tech firms can find us when it comes to consumers of technology. You can find us - we are CEOs and CFOs and engineers and lawyers and ad agencies and investment bankers, too. Rainbow/PUSH stands ready to search with you to find qualified candidates (Note: no doubt in exchange for a generous finder's fee).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The responses by these information technology leaders could have been predicted. Management at eBay had nothing overt to say, which amounts to tacit agreement. More telling was <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/753362/Google_Concedes_in_Diversity_Data_That_Employees_Mainly_Male_and_White">the response by Google</a>. In exchange for Jackson's demand for the company to release employee demographic data on its U.S. work force, David Drummond, chief legal officer (who, like Jackson, is black), <a href="http://www.realtimesmedia.com/index.php/pittsburgh/15474-google-to-release-diversity-stats-after-&acirc;&euro;&tilde;push&acirc;&euro;&trade;-from-jesse-jackson">promised</a> that his company would release the numbers. He didn't take very long to deliver. Yesterday, the company issued a report on workforce diversity showing about 60 percent of Google employees are white and 30 percent are Asian (apparently not all racial minorities arouse Jackson's sympathies). Laszlo Bock, Google's senior vice president for public relations, also wrote in a blog: "Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity, and it's hard to address these kinds of challenges if you're not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts." Facebook also gave in, adopting a feckless "we're really, really trying" line. COO <a href="http://rollingout.com/politics/facebook-apple-google-twitter-zero-blacks-boards-directors-jesse-jackson-reveals/">Sheryl Sandberg explained</a> in writing: "We have built a number of great partnerships, groups like the National Society of Black Engineers, the Hispanic Alumni of Georgia Tech, Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, and Management Leadership of Tomorrow. And these partnerships have been great because they are really helping us get great candidates and reach out."</p>
<p>Jackson's IT gambit has been all over the map this year. Earlier this year, he wrote a letter to tech companies, including Apple, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard, and Twitter, replete with his familiar hectoring style. On March 19, he showed up at <a href="http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/03/19/18752812.php">the Hewlett-Packard shareholders meeting</a> at the Santa Clara Convention Center to skewer CEO Meg Whitman and her company's record on minority hiring. And just two days ago, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/101707346">appearing on CNBC</a>, Jackson denounced information technology firms for their lack of "diversity."</p>
<p>It's important to keep in mind that though major U.S. employers are not required to make employee demographic data public, they must furnish such data to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And the numbers eventually can be used in a federal lawsuit against any company for its "disparate impact" upon minorities. In other words, even if a tech firm hasn't willfully discriminated against minorities in any phase of its operations, it can be sued anyway because its actions inadvertantly had the effect of keeping minority representation below an ostensibly proper level. National Legal and Policy Center has strongly critiqued this&nbsp;doctrine as it applies to such issues as&nbsp;<a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/07/25/wells-fargo-succumbs-dojs-civil-rights-shakedown-agrees-pay-175-million">mortgage lending</a> and <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/08/25/obama-issues-executive-order-mandating-racial-favoritism">federal employee hiring and promotion</a>.</p>
<p>All of this is depressing. Jesse Jackson's targets in this case are among the largest and fastest-growing firms in the entire business world, not just in the information technology sector. If these corporations can't summon the <em>cojones</em> to stand up to Jackson, small start-ups certainly aren't likely to do so either. Most IT industry leaders are more than happy to succumb to people like Jackson if doing so deflects&nbsp;threats, however hollow,&nbsp;of boycotts, lawsuits and other sabotaging of the company brand name. In business, image is everything. And nothing weakens a company image these days quite like a charge of "racism."</p>
<p>Fortunately, there is one person in Silicon Valley who has demonstrated a willingness to resist Jackson. That would be T. J. Rodgers, founder and CEO of the San Jose-based Cypress Semiconductor. Some 15 years ago, Jackson had embarked on a similar campaign to promote affirmation action in IT industry employment. But Rodgers wouldn't back down. In March 1999, he authored an editorial for the San Jose Mercury News, "<a href="http://www.cypress.com/?rID=34973">Valley Should Stand Up to Jackson's Divisive Tactics</a>," in which he rebutted Rev. Jackson's campaign. A few years earlier, he had referred to boardroom quotas as "unsound" and "immoral." He was right then and he would be just as right today. Other business executives could emulate his example.</p>
<p>Tech firms, whether&nbsp;specializing in hardware, software, e-commerce or social media, don't owe a thing to any one class of "underrepresented" people. They are in business to provide quality products and services. Theirs is a ferociously competitive world in which merely moving forward with insufficient speed&nbsp;can spell obsolescence. One must constantly innovate or risk being left in the dust. If black, Hispanic and other minority-group tech startup entrepreneurs think they can succeed in that world, and with a boost from&nbsp;venture capital firms, let them have a go of it. Nobody is holding them down. But it's not the job of Google, Facebook or any other successful company to make amends for nonexistent wrongdoing on their part. Their job, within the bounds of ethical and legal behavior, is satisfying consumers and generating profits. Part of that job involves telling people like Jesse Jackson to take a hike.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/11/29/obama-set-unleash-lawsuits-mandate-racial-preferences">Obama Set to Unleash Lawsuits to Mandate Racial Preferences</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/06/08/weekly-standard-exposes-corporate-diversity-obsession">Weekly Standard Updates State of Corporate &lsquo;Diversity' Obsession</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/04/08/citigroup-proxy-lauds-robert-rubin-no-gratitude-taxpayers">Citigroup Proxy Lauds Robert Rubin; No Gratitude to Taxpayers</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/sites/default/files/CorDiv_SR_0.pdf">The Authoritarian Roots of Corporate Diversity Training</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Corporate Integrity Projectcorporate shakedownsDavid DrummonddiversityeBayFacebookGoogleHewlett-PackardJesse JacksonLaszlo BockRainbow/PUSHSheryl SandbergSilicon ValleyT.J. RodgersThu, 29 May 2014 21:04:07 +0000Carl Horowitz4876 at http://nlpc.orgRFK Jr.'s 2001 Diary Blasts Sharpton, Jackson, the Cuomoshttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/09/09/rfk-jrs-2001-diary-entries-blast-sharpton-jackson-cuomos
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/imagesCASY4GCD.jpg" border="0" alt="Robert F. Kennedy Jr." width="150" height="225" />Robert F. Kennedy Jr., like his late father, Robert F. Kennedy, long has had a reputation for bluntness. And though a partisan of the Democratic Party Left, he can be as unsparing in his assessment of his&nbsp;allies as he is of anyone else. Just how unsparing was brought home <a href="http://nypost.com/2013/09/09/diary-bombshell-rfks-secret-slams-against-al-sharpton-jesse-jackson-and-gov-cuomo/">yesterday in&nbsp;the New York Post</a> in an article that summarized&nbsp;several of the younger Kennedy's entries in a diary back in 2001. Obtained by veteran Post reporters Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein, the diary underscores many&nbsp;things&nbsp;National Legal and Policy Center has been saying for years, particularly about Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. See my Special Report titled <em><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/05/14/new-nlpc-special-report-exposes-real-al-sharpton">Mainstreaming Demagoguery: Al Sharpton&rsquo;s Rise to Respectability</a>.</em> Kennedy had written that the two civil rights leaders "give me the creeps."<!--break-->&nbsp;One takes satisfaction in the knowledge that disdain for some of more disreputable members of the nation's political upper class is an activity not limited by party or ideology.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Now 59, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is almost as much a public figure as his late father, former U.S. Attorney General and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y., cut down by an assassin in June 1968 during his presidential run. The third of eleven children, the younger Kennedy is an attorney, a well-published author, an environmental activist, and the host of an independently syndicated radio talk show, "Ring of Fire." But it is his political diary, part of which the New York Post divulged on Sunday, that is making him hot right now - and not in a happy way. Kennedy had written&nbsp;his opinions of more than two dozen public figures in the fat red book, many as deserved as they were unflattering. Kennedy indicated his displeasure over yesterday's revelations&nbsp;<a href="http://nypost.com/2013/09/09/diary-bombshell-rfks-secret-slams-against-al-sharpton-jesse-jackson-and-gov-cuomo/">in an e-mail</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The New York Post has chosen to print excerpts from a 13-year-old (sic) diary illegally stolen from me. The diary served as a tool for self-examination and for dealing with my spiritual struggles at the time. It also contains unedited, unfiltered stream-of-consciousness musings about current events and people. Nothing in that diary was ever meant for publication. I have nothing but respect for Governor (Andrew) Cuomo, Rev. Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, all of whom have distinguished themselves as extraordinary national leaders over the past decade.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fact remains that a dozen years ago, at various points during 2001, Kennedy didn't mince any words about these and other persons. Here are some diary samples.</p>
<p><strong>Jesse Jackson.</strong> Our diarist apparently had some serious disdain for Jesse Jackson Sr., the Chicago-based civil rights leader and twice-presidential candidate (1984 and 1988). Jackson, wrote Kennedy, has "a desperate and destructive addiction to publicity." Kennedy recalled the 1993 funeral of California farm workers' leader Cesar Chavez, which both had attended. Jackson "pushed Cesar's friends and family out of the way to make himself lead pall bearer." Moreover, wrote Kennedy, "His (Jackson's) love affair with Louis Farrakhan and his Jewish xenophobia are also unforgiveable." Kennedy summarized his subject: "I feel dirty around him, and I feel like I'm being used. I feel like with Jesse, it's all about Jesse." He is, of course, not the first person to feel this way - Jackson's crude egomania <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shakedown-Exposing-Real-Jesse-Jackson/dp/0895261081">already had&nbsp;been well-documented</a> - but it's significant that a strong political ally would make the same point.</p>
<p><strong>Al Sharpton.</strong> Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thought no more&nbsp;of Reverend Al Sharpton, the New York City-based preacher, civil rights leader and eventual presidential candidate in the 2004 race. Sharpton, wrote Kennedy, is a "buffoon," who never had escaped the "stench" of his public advocacy of Tawana Brawley, a black Dutchess County, N.Y. teenager who had claimed she was assaulted and raped by a group of&nbsp;men, including&nbsp;law enforcement officers, over several days in November 1987. The accusations, which became almost daily national news thanks to Sharpton-generated hysteria,&nbsp;eventually was revealed beyond&nbsp;any reasonable doubt to be a hoax. "Al Sharpton has done more damage to the black cause than George Wallace," wrote Kennedy. "He has suffocated the decent black leaders in New York. His transparent venal blackmail and extortion schemes taint all black leadership." It's significant that Sharpton, Jackson and Jackson's wife Jacqueline, along with Kennedy, each had been arrested in April 2001 for trespassing during highly-publicized protests on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, a small portion of which was used by the U.S. Navy as a practice bombing range.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew Cuomo.</strong> Now governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo,&nbsp;son of former New York Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo, is a take-no-prisoners politician himself. And for a decade and a half he also was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s brother-in-law; the younger Cuomo during 1990-2005 had been married to a sister, Kerry Kennedy. RFK Jr. might have a family quarrel on his hands right now. Kennedy recalled in his diary a conversation he and Cuomo had on New Year's Day 2001 concerning&nbsp;the latter's political plans. At the time, Cuomo was finishing his tenure as President Clinton's second-term secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Kennedy&nbsp;wrote down&nbsp;not long afterward: "Andrew could win because he is totally focused and energetic. He could lose because he lacks humanity and doesn't love people. He is not a retail politician."</p>
<p><strong>Mario Cuomo.</strong> As a three-term governor of New York (January 1, 1983-December 31, 1994), Mario Cuomo was the consummate "sharp elbows" politician. Blunt, liberal and proud of it, he was on everyone's&nbsp;A-list of future presidential material following his rousing keynote address at the 1984 Democratic Party National Convention in San Francisco. But by 2001 Kennedy had a problem with his father-in-law, also a lawyer. The elder Cuomo at the time was working on a deal to spare RFK Jr. a sentence following his arrest at the Vieques demonstration. Kennedy, who sought to generate attention to endangered species in the region, insisted on being treated like other protestors. In his diary, he denounced Cuomo, though later congratulated him on "a good job." Kennedy, for the record, served 30 days in jail.</p>
<p>The reader should not glean from any of this that Kennedy was some kind of closet Republican. He was anything but that. Kennedy at one point wrote that President George W. Bush, then in his first year in the White House, was "an idiot and a puppet." Watching Bush on TV was "painful." Of&nbsp;Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese, Kennedy wrote: "I had to hold my nose when I shook hands with Ed Meese, but I did it." And while praising New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani during the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, he had no kind words for his political aspirations. Kennedy wrote: "I saw Rudy Giuliani, that little despot, threatening on TV last night to make some sort of deal with the mayoral candidates about staying on for a couple extra months." RFK the Younger is still on the case. Last December he <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/robert-f-kennedy-jr-fox-news_n_2261043.html">told&nbsp;HuffPost Live</a> that&nbsp;the "right-wing" media,&nbsp;especially Fox News, are dividing our country in ways not seen since the Civil War.</p>
<p>Yet the most pertinent revelations of the Kennedy diary arguably are those that take his&nbsp;allies to task. These may not be original observations, but they do&nbsp;add credibility to the charge,&nbsp;often made by NLPC, that certain political operatives of the Left, especially&nbsp;Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, are demagogues who can't be trusted. Whatever&nbsp;the method&nbsp;- assuming it was legal -&nbsp;that New York Post reporters&nbsp;Isabel Vincent (<a href="http://nypost.com/2008/08/31/tricky-charlies-carib-hideaway/">who in the past&nbsp;has&nbsp;publicized&nbsp;NLPC findings</a>) and Melissa&nbsp;Klein used&nbsp;to obtain the diary, they should be commended for going the extra mile. The Kennedy family is well-known for&nbsp;its aggressive aversion to&nbsp;criticism and negative&nbsp;exposure. "If I find out who has called me ruthless, I will destroy him," Robert F. Kennedy Sr. once remarked, arguably only half-jokingly. The late senator&nbsp;was well-known&nbsp;for his&nbsp;off-the-cuff opinions. Few would doubt that his namesake son, for better or worse,&nbsp;has inherited this trait.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Al SharptonAndrew CuomoCulture of CorruptionGovernment Integrity ProjectJesse JacksonMario CuomoRobert F. Kennedy Jr.Mon, 09 Sep 2013 18:27:17 +0000Carl Horowitz4588 at http://nlpc.orgObama, Holder, Sharpton Misrepresent Facts in Trayvon Martin Case; Seek Federal Chargeshttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/07/24/obama-holder-sharpton-misrepresent-facts-trayvon-martin-case-seek-federal-charges
<p><img style="float: right; border: 0px;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/images[6]_23.jpg" border="0" alt="President Barack Obama and Al Sharpton" width="280" height="211" />The acquittal by a six-member Florida jury on July 13 in the trial of George Zimmerman for&nbsp;second-degree murder, with an option to convict for manslaughter,&nbsp;at least&nbsp;among rational people, produced relief and apprehension - relief because Zimmerman wouldn't be headed to state prison; apprehension because the verdict likely would be a prelude to a federal probe. The latter is now underway. Attorney General Eric Holder, with the tacit approval of President Obama, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/ag-calls-martin-killing-unnecessary-shooting-172634584.html">has launched a campaign</a> to delegitimize and overturn the verdict on the belief that Zimmerman, a white of partial&nbsp;Hispanic ancestry and a Neighborhood Watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., wantonly shot a black teenager, Trayvon Martin, to death, and with racial intent.<!--break-->&nbsp;Any Justice Department action on this score would jeopardize&nbsp;rule of law and public safety. So it's only fitting that this campaign got a boost this past weekend from demonstrations across the U.S. organized by Al Sharpton, a dedicated and destructive racial demagogue.&nbsp;</p>
<p>National Legal and Policy Center <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/04/03/obama-fails-uniter-test-trayvon-martin-incident">described this case in detail</a> in early April 2012. The evidence, even then, overwhelmingly supported the view that George Zimmerman, far from being a glory-hunting vigilante motivated by "racism," was the victim of a brutal and unprovoked beating by the 17-year-old Martin. Testimony during the trial&nbsp;convinced the&nbsp;jury,&nbsp;three&nbsp;members&nbsp;of which&nbsp;<a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2013/07/25/zimmerman-juror-lets-face-it-he-got-away-with-murder/">initially had voted to convict</a>,&nbsp;that Zimmerman used his pistol to save his own life, not to callously take someone else's. <a href="http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=photos+george+zimmerman+head+face&amp;id=78C3EE730730E37B1FAE5D092047F69440DC0750&amp;FORM=IQFRBA">Photos indicating trauma</a> to Zimmerman's face and head were merely part of the body of evidence that state prosecutors chose to ignore or downplay. It is difficult to see how a federal prosecution would be justified.</p>
<p>President Obama thinks otherwise. He had been maintaining a low profile since his "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon" statement back in March 2012. But following the verdict, he let slip his disapproval. "We are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken," he announced in a brief, scripted, tight-lipped televised statement. The president's use of the phrase "a jury," as opposed to "the jury," was telling. In a clever lawyerly way, he was implying this particular jury was less than legitimate; another jury, presumably more enlightened, would have reached the opposite conclusion. The hint: "We'll get &lsquo;em next time." He followed this statement with <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/19/us-usa-florida-shooting-obama-idUSBRE96I0XT20130719">a much more provocative and personal one</a> on Friday. Trayvon Martin, he said, "could have been me, 35 years ago." Amplifying the sentiment, he stated: "There are very few African-Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off." The president apparently sees fear of crime as "racism." At the very least, Obama, trained as a lawyer, should know that a head of state who injects himself into a case like this could make a fair trial for Zimmerman almost impossible.</p>
<p>U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder notwithstanding is heading a Justice Department treasure hunt for evidence. Like his boss, he's disingenuously playing the role of healer/unifier. In a speech last Monday, July 15, before a national black sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/civil-rights-charges-against-zimmerman-would-be-difficult-justice-officials-say/2013/07/15/d02c1212-ed67-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story.html">he called</a> Martin's killing "a tragic, unnecessary shooting death." He added: "We are determined to meet division and confusion with understanding and compassion - and also with truth. We will never stop working to ensure that in every case, in every circumstance and in every community, justice must be done." The Attorney General apparently hasn't had a problem with the Justice Department's <a href="http://voices.yahoo.com/charge-justice-department-facilitated-trayvon-martin-12229570.html">Community Relations Service</a> sponsoring a series of rallies in Florida during which George Zimmerman was roundly denounced. <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/02/sharpton-annual-conference-again-heavily-corporate-funded">Holder had been plenary speaker</a> at the 2012 annual convention of Reverend Al Sharpton's New York-based nonprofit group, National Action Network (NAN), an event held that April in Washington, D.C. During the event, Trayvon Martin's parents appeared on stage with Sharpton.</p>
<p>As for Sharpton, <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/08/31/sharpton-becomes-full-time-msnbc-anchorman-debuts-show">a full-time MSNBC anchorman</a> for the past two years, he seems as eager to make the news as he is to report it. Having already called the Florida verdict "an atrocity," he vowed last Tuesday in Washington that he would lead a "Justice for Trayvon" day in 100 cities on Saturday, July 20,&nbsp;to demand, for starters, federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman. Sharpton, a frequent visitor to the Obama White House, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sharpton-to-rally-in-100-cities-to-push-for-civil-rights-charges-in-trayvon-martin-death/2013/07/16/c9e82544-ee2a-11e2-bb32-725c8351a69e_story.html">remarked</a>: "People all over the country will gather to show that we are not having a two- or three-day anger fit. This is a social movement for justice." But the protests produced nothing resembling hundreds of thousands, much less millions, of people. In Chicago, the home turf of featured speaker and "civil rights" hustler Jesse Jackson, a crowd of an estimated&nbsp;6,000 protestors showed up. In New York, a modest crowd&nbsp;attended <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/jay-z-beyonce-justice-trayvon-martin-vigil-manhattan-slain-teen-mother-article-1.1404385">a rally in Harlem</a> outside NAN headquarters, an event that featured not only Sharpton, but also reigning hip-hop/r&amp;b power couple Jay Z and Beyonce. In most cities, the rallies attracted only a few to several hundred persons. And the attendees were overwhelmingly black, undercutting the notion that the "Justice for Trayvon" movement is a multiracial "rainbow" that unites all Americans.</p>
<p>Jesse Jackson hadn't been missing in action even before the Chicago protest. Several days before, <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/jesse-jackson-urges-un-human-rights-council-investigate-trayvon-martin-shooting">he called for an investigation</a> into the verdict by the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/HRCIndex.aspx">UN Human Rights Council</a>, a rotating body of 47 nation-states whose current membership include such human rights stalwarts as Angola, Congo and Kazakhstan. Jackson, founder-president of the nonprofit Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, also had issued a statement calling for "a national investigation of the racial context that led to Trayvon Martin's slaying." Let us translate: White America has blood on its hands and needs to engage in deep soul-searching as part of a "national conversation" on race.</p>
<p>Moral exhibitionism, however, isn't the same thing as sound evidence. Any effort to put Zimmerman behind bars will face enormous obstacles. Indeed, it is hard to see how federal prosecutors would be any more effective than Florida prosecutors, whose case was effectively nonexistent. Not only would such a case be time-consuming and expensive, the very fact of its existence would raise the expectation of a conviction and thus the likelihood of mass rioting in the event of another acquittal. Indeed,&nbsp;in the immediate wake of the state verdict, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2364794/Trayvon-Martin-thug-Rachel-Jeantel-speaks-anger-wake-George-Zimmerman-verdict.html">rioting did occur</a>. In Los Angeles, black rioters blocked traffic on Crenshaw Boulevard, at times jumping on vehicles. Part of the mob also invaded a local Walmart store, knocking down displays until security guards chased them out. Were it not for a rapid police response, things could have gotten as out of hand as they did in South-Central Los Angeles in 1992 in the aftermath of the jury acquittal of four police officers accused of beating an out-of-control motorist, Rodney King. Up the coast in Oakland, black hoodlums smashed police cars and broke storefront windows. Protests in Atlanta, Birmingham, Houston, Minneapolis, New York City and Washington, D.C., at least, were relatively peaceful.</p>
<p>The mass outrage was the culmination of a choreographed attempt to transform Trayvon Martin from an attempted murderer into a murder victim. Beginning in March 2012, only several days after the shooting,&nbsp;a&nbsp;nationwide groundswell of public&nbsp;sentiment&nbsp;had materialized to demand the prosecution of George Zimmerman for the February shooting death of Trayvon Martin. At the time, Martin&nbsp;was visiting his father in Sanford, Fla., not far from Orlando. Zimmerman, 28, was a patrol captain in a neighborhood crime prevention program. Local residents had formed the patrol following a recent sharp upswing in burglaries and other crimes. In fact, from January 1, 2011 through February 26, 2012 - the night of the shooting - police had been called to the 263-unit townhome complex where Martin visited, and where Zimmerman lived, The Retreat at Twin Lakes, <a href="http://archive.is/JR5OR">more than 400 times</a>. George Zimmerman, in other words,&nbsp;perceived his neighborhood to have a crime problem because there <em>was</em> a crime problem. And far from being a "lone wolf," Zimmerman&nbsp;was <a href="http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/03/21/george-zimmerman-trayvon-martins-shooter-has-ties-to-d-c-area/">well-liked in his community</a>. Blacks as well as whites trusted him. And his Neighborhood Watch council worked with, not against, local police.</p>
<p>He would face a crime problem directly <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57412417-504083/trayvon-martin-shooting-a-timeline-of-events/">on February 26, 2012</a>. It was just after 7 PM. Zimmerman, driving in his truck to a neighborhood convenience store, encountered a male teenaged pedestrian who looked suspicious. His name was Trayvon Martin. And he was on a visit from Miami-Dade County. He and his father, Tracy Martin, had come up to Sanford to stay for a while with the father's girlfriend, also a resident of The Retreat at Twin Lakes. Far from being a "child," as his sympathizers&nbsp;to this day insist on describing him (often displaying an absurdly dated photo), Trayvon Martin was at least six feet tall, a good four inches taller, in fact,&nbsp;than Zimmerman. He was in Sanford because he had been suspended, and not for the first time, from his high school in Miami Gardens. He also was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, or "hoodie." It is common knowledge that criminals often wear this article of clothing so as to conceal their identity during a crime. As this was central Florida, it certainly wasn't "cold weather" that induced Martin to don this apparel. Maybe this teen wasn't about to commit a crime, Zimmerman thought, but he certainly looked more suspicious than the average person. It wouldn't hurt to observe and report.</p>
<p>George Zimmerman, as a resident with his wife at The Retreat at Twin Lakes, had a personal stake in keeping the area safe. And he had been licensed by the State of Florida to carry a firearm&nbsp;since November 2009. At 7:09 PM, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin">Zimmerman called a non-emergency police number</a> to report a suspicious person on the premises. He told the dispatcher: "We've had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there is a real suspicious guy," adding, "This guy looks like he is up to no good or he is on drugs or something." The individual, noted Zimmerman, had his hand in his waistband and was walking around looking at homes. About two minutes into the call, he told the police dispatcher, "He's running," to which the dispatcher responded, "Which way is he running?" At that point, there was a noise on the tape suggestive of a&nbsp;door chime, an indication Zimmerman had gotten out of his vehicle and followed the perp on foot. But the perp was fast and ran between townhouse clusters rather than along a sidewalk. Zimmerman soon lost sight of him. The dispatcher asked if he was following him. Zimmerman replied that he was. The police response: "We don't need you to do that." Contrary to popular misconception, the dispatcher wasn't ordering him not to follow, but simply telling him that such action wouldn't be necessary. Zimmerman in no way was "stalking" the suspect or taking the law into his own hands. Notwithstanding, he consented to the request, but did ask for a police presence.&nbsp;The call ended at about 7:15 PM.</p>
<p>Zimmerman went back to his vehicle. It was at this time that Trayvon Martin, seemingly out of nowhere, aggressively confronted Zimmerman, and menacingly asked, "What's your problem, homie?" Zimmerman replied, no doubt with a high degree of fear, that he didn't have a problem. He then reached for his cell phone. Martin responded, "You do now," and charged at Zimmerman, decking him with a sucker punch. Having just committed a crime, Martin proceeded to amplify it, pinning a prone Zimmerman and slamming his head onto the pavement. When Zimmerman yelled in anguish, Martin told him to shut up and slammed his head again. And to emphasize his point, Martin allegedly told Zimmerman, <a href="http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/03/29/10912176-george-zimmermans-dad-says-travyon-told-his-son-youre-gonna-die-now?lite">"You're gonna die now."</a> Zimmerman had every reason to take the assailant at his word. But he also had the means to save his life. Zimmerman pulled out a handgun from his pocket, and after a brief struggle, fired one shot at close range, hitting Martin in the chest. "You got me," Martin said, falling backward. By 7:30 PM, he would be dead.</p>
<p>Police arrived on the scene soon enough. There had been, in fact, at least four neighbors who were eyewitnesses to part or all of the sequence of events; <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/28/us-usa-florida-shooting-idUSBRE95Q0EE20130628">all eventually would testify at the trial</a>. The cops took Zimmerman into custody, allowing him to be treated for head injuries. After interrogating him for five hours, they decided against arresting him for homicide; the evidence and legal basis just wasn't there. But events outside Sanford conspired to ensure this was just the beginning. Trayvon Martin's supporters, led by his parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, held a press conference on March 8 calling attention to the case. On March 14, the parents created a petition on a website, Change.org, calling for Zimmerman's arrest. Within a week, the petition generated nearly 900,000 signatures. The attorney for the parents, Benjamin Crump, verified that his clients had received a flood of inquiries. On March 22, the pace accelerated at warp speed. Sanford Police Chief Billy Lee announced he "temporarily" would step down; Martin's parents met with officials from the U.S. Justice Department; Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott appointed State's Attorney (Fourth Judicial Circuit) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Corey">Angela Corey</a> as special prosecutor; and the peripatetic Al Sharpton came down from New York to give a speech before an eager throng at Sanford's Fort Mellon Park. The following day, March 23, President Obama weighed in with his famous words, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."</p>
<p>The special prosecutor, Angela Corey, had exhibited <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/07/william-l-anderson/the-sorry-politics-of-race/">a disturbing pattern&nbsp;of abuse of her position</a>. And the niceties of due process didn't much interest her. Recognizing a grand jury was highly unlikely to indict, Corey simply avoided that route altogether. She opted to play to a heavily media-driven image of Trayvon Martin as a helpless, innocent boy with a bag of Skittles in his pocket - an Emmett Till for these times - maliciously stalked and murdered by a white bigot. She gambled that the jury, one hopefully&nbsp;swayed&nbsp;by&nbsp;emotion alone,&nbsp;would vote to convict Zimmerman. Not long after, on April 11, 2012, the State of Florida charged George Zimmerman with second-degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin.</p>
<p>Angela Corey, however, gambled&nbsp;wrong. Once the trial finally got underway this past June 10, the courtroom prosecution team proved&nbsp;bombastic but ineffective. The attorneys were long on fist-pounding and assertions of racial hatred, but&nbsp;way short on evidence of an actual crime on the defendant's part. On Saturday night, July 13, the all-female jury, following 15 hours of deliberation over two days, came back with its verdict: "Not guilty" on each of second-degree murder and manslaughter. The prosecution not only failed to rise to the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt," it failed to rise at all. The state didn't really blow its case; more accurately, it never had a case in the first place. The conclusion was inevitable: George Zimmerman acted in self-defense - and might be dead if he hadn't.</p>
<p>Opponents of the verdict, with push-button outrage, responded, against all sound evidence, that this was a miscarriage of justice. Nothing less than a federal prosecution would do. Repeatedly, they have chanted, "Justice for Trayvon," unwilling to face the fact that justice is an orderly, impartial process by which evidence can be presented, heard and debated. In other words, justice isn't a guaranteed outcome to one's liking. They are demanding the repeal of "Stand Your Ground" state laws, ignorant of the fact that Zimmerman's defense lawyers at no time invoked Florida's. The hanging jury in the streets is doing more than protesting. They've sent thousands of Twitter messages demanding Zimmerman's execution, some including his home address. They've also sent death threats to immediate family members of Zimmerman, forcing them to leave their home. For some reason, Attorney General Eric Holder and the rest of the Justice Department haven't seen fit to investigate these threats.</p>
<p>The U.S. Justice Department would do well to take a pass on this case. One finds it impossible how a federal jury, possessed of sound mind and character, could come to a verdict different from the one reached by the Florida jury. Reopening the case would be wrong for any number of reasons. For starters, it might well constitute a case of <a href="http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Double+Jeopardy">double jeopardy</a>. Assuming a federal charge does clear this hurdle, it would be faced with the reality of no evidence of misconduct on the part of the defense or the jury in the state trial. And as for charging Zimmerman with a federal "hate crime," it would be easier said than done. The prosecution would have to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman killed Martin because of his race. "It's not enough to show that Zimmerman followed Martin because of his race," says University of Virginia law professor <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/civil-rights-charges-against-zimmerman-would-be-difficult-justice-officials-say/2013/07/15/d02c1212-ed67-11e2-bed3-b9b6fe264871_story.html">Rachel Harmon</a>, a former prosecutor in the Justice Department's civil rights division. "They (prosecutors) would have to show that he attacked Martin for that reason...Proving that motive is why it's hard to bring hate crime charges in general and why it is likely to be hard to bring them in this case." But even that bar would be too low because Zimmerman did not "attack" Martin. It was the other way around, and with potentially lethal results. In other words, even if George Zimmerman really did hate blacks, such a fact would be immaterial because he was acting to defend his life. Keep in mind that last week this same George Zimmerman was a Good Samaritan in Sanford. On the&nbsp;afternoon of July 17, he and another individual <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmerman-emerged-hiding-rescue-family-trapped-suv/story?id=19735432">rescued a family of four</a> from a burning Ford Explorer SUV that had rolled off the highway in a single-vehicle crash.</p>
<p>The state case against Zimmerman would have looked even less substantial had Special Prosecutor Angela Corey not engaged in a series of ethically egregious moves. Corey, among other things, fired her information technology specialist, Ben Kruidbos, because Kruidbos had extracted photos from the cell phone of Trayvon Martin that showed a gun, a marijuana plant and jewelry, plus a text message referring to a gun transaction, and planned to turn the evidence over to the defense; Corey did not turn over the evidence. Writing about this, George Washington University law professor <a href="http://jonathanturley.org/2013/07/15/angela-corey-fires-whistleblower-who-revealed-the-withholding-of-evidence-from-zimmerman-defense/">Jonathan Turley observed</a>: "The failure to turn over evidence or the delayed disclosure is the most common form of prosecutorial abuse." Zimmerman actually has legitimate grounds for suing the State of Florida. Harvard legal scholar and appellate lawyer Alan Dershowitz, for one, believes the behavior of Corey was "irresponsible and reckless" and "bordered on criminal conduct." <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/07/14/alan_dershowitz_zimmerman_special_prosecutor_angela_corey_should_be_disbarred.html">Dershowitz asserted</a>: "In my 50 years of litigating cases, rarely have I seen [anything] as bad as this prosecution." And who would the star witness for the prosecution in a federal trial be? If it's the state's "star witness," <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2013/07/17/the-new-school-on-cnn">Rachel Jeantel</a>, the Justice Department might as well fold its tent. Ms. Jeantel, a 19-year-old black&nbsp;friend of Martin, proved uncooperative, ungrammatical, surly and self-contradictory while on the stand. During a post-verdict interview with the Huffington Post, <a href="http://www.vdare.com/posts/rachel-jeantel-confirms-trayvon-struck-first">she even admitted Martin most likely landed the first blow</a>.</p>
<p>Let's be blunt: As nonexistent as the case by the State of Florida against George Zimmerman was, any federal prosecution would be every bit as much so - and with the political motive even more transparent. One strains to think of a more obnoxious and politically-driven case than this. Yet the Obama administration, egged on by racial street hustlers like Al Sharpton, is bent on replicating the experience. And suppose a jury doesn't come up with the "right" verdict - would there be mass rioting this time around? The Justice Department isn't wasting any time finding out. Just one day after the Florida verdict, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/us/justice-department-to-restart-hate-crime-investigation-in-trayvon-martins-death.html?_r=0">the department announced</a> it was reopening its earlier investigation into the possibility that Zimmerman had committed a hate crime. Such is the nature of the "post-racial" America promised by Barack Obama when he first ran for president.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/04/03/obama-fails-uniter-test-trayvon-martin-incident">Obama Fails &lsquo;Uniter' Test on Trayvon Martin Incident</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/02/sharpton-annual-conference-again-heavily-corporate-funded">Sharpton Annual Conference Again Heavily Corporate-Funded</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/07/23/why-obama-wrong-about-henry-louis-gates">Why Obama Is Wrong About Henry Louis Gates</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/05/14/new-nlpc-special-report-exposes-real-al-sharpton">New NLPC Special Report Exposes the Real Al Sharpton</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Al SharptonAngela CoreyBarack ObamaEric HolderGeorge ZimmermanGovernment Integrity ProjectJesse Jacksonprosecutorial abuseTrayvon MartinU.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)White Housewitch huntsWed, 24 Jul 2013 17:47:44 +0000Carl Horowitz4543 at http://nlpc.orgJesse Jackson Jr. Pleads Guilty to $750K in Campaign Fund Theftshttp://nlpc.org/stories/2013/02/22/jesse-jackson-jr-pleads-guilty-750k-campaign-fund-thefts
<p><img style="float: right; border: 0px none;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/images[1]_17.jpg" border="0" alt="Jesse Jackson Jr." width="300" height="189" />The elder Jesse Jackson has grown wealthy these past couple decades mainly by shaking down corporations. One of his sons, former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill. (see photo), has preferred a different path to wealth: his campaign till. That path is now leading to federal prison. On Wednesday, February 20, the younger Jackson, who served nine terms in Congress before resigning last November 21, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/jackson-admits-misusing-campaign-funds/2013/02/20/5ab581f0-7b64-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html">pleaded guilty in District of Columbia federal court</a> to diverting about $750,000 in re-election funds to personal use. Jackson, who since last June has been hospitalized twice at the Mayo Clinic for bipolar disorder and other problems, told U.S. District Judge Robert L. Wilkins that in pleading guilty to wire and mail fraud, he had "no interest in wasting the taxpayers' time or money." His wife, Sandi, until recently a Chicago city alderwoman, hours later pled guilty to a related tax fraud charge.<!--break-->&nbsp;</p>
<p>In a real sense, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Jackson%2C_Jr">Jesse Jackson Jr.</a>, now 47, was a child of fate. Like his father, Jesse Jackson Sr., he was born in Greenville, South Carolina. And after his father moved the family to Chicago, he grew up&nbsp;in that city's&nbsp;South Shore community. The second&nbsp;of five children from his father's marriage to Jacqueline Jackson, Jesse Jr. inherited more than just a&nbsp;name. By age five he was mimicking his father in a speech atop a milk crate at the headquarters of Jesse Sr.'s Operation PUSH (later known as Rainbow Coalition/PUSH). Like his father, he attended college at North Carolina A&amp;T, where, like his father, he was a football standout. And like his father, he received a master's degree in seminary school. But rather than become a minister, he chose law school, graduating with a J.D. from the University of Illinois in 1993. A career in politics seemed inevitable. Already, he had racked up extensive time stumping for his father during the latter's presidential runs of 1984 and 1988.</p>
<p>As an aspiring politician, Jesse Jackson Jr. made the right moves during the second half of the Eighties and the first half of the Nineties. Early on, along with his father and a brother, he got himself arrested during anti-apartheid demonstrations at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. Later, in the Nineties, he became secretary of the Democratic National Committee's Black Caucus and the national field director of his father's National Rainbow Coalition. Among his projects was pressuring the National Basketball Association to step up hiring of blacks for front-office executive and support staff positions. By mid-decade Jesse Jr. had accumulated an impressive resume - at least by standards of the civil rights Left. And he was now married. The presidency was a ways off, but a seat in Congress certainly was achievable. And he didn't have to look far to find a vacancy.</p>
<p>Illinois' 2nd congressional district, which encompasses heavily black South Side Chicago and neighboring suburban communities, isn't the first place where one looks for accountability in government. It definitely wasn't that when Jesse Jackson Jr. first tossed his hat into the ring for a special December 1995 election. His immediate two-term predecessor, Democratic Rep. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Reynolds">Mel Reynolds</a>, had resigned from Congress early that fall following a conviction in August on 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography; less than two years later, in April 1997, Reynolds was convicted on 15 unrelated counts of bank fraud and lying to SEC investigators. In both instances, he received a federal prison sentence. (That's not even including a mountain of civil suits he faced for unpaid bills). Reynolds, for his part, had won his seat in a 1992 election against six-term Democratic Rep. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gus_Savage">Gus Savage</a>. A rather unlovable eccentric black radical with a penchant for making derogatory remarks about whites and especially Jews, Savage was accused in 1989 of sexually assaulting a female Peace Corps worker during a trip to Zaire. At first, Savage, a close ally of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, denied the allegation, claiming it was an invention of the "racist press." But a House Ethics Committee investigation later determined he had committed the assault. The committee ultimately decided against recommending disciplinary action because Savage had written a letter of apology.</p>
<p>Jesse Jackson Jr. won an overwhelming victory in that December 1995 special election by a nearly 3-1 margin over Republican challenger-sacrificial lamb Thomas Somer. At age 30, Jackson's time had arrived. Here, noted media <em>cognescenti</em>, was a breath of fresh air and the symbolic fulfillment of a civil-rights legacy. In 1997, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1997/04/21/the-century-club.html">Newsweek&nbsp;named Jackson</a> as one of 100 young adults to watch (the "Century Club"). He was young, bold and idealistic. And his speeches and voting record gave every indication of a man upholding his father's legacy - such as that legacy&nbsp;was. Early in the Bush administration, he called upon blacks to withhold support for Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, supposedly lackeys of President Bush. In 2005, he sponsored a bill to create and acquire for display in the U.S. Capitol a life-size statue of Rosa Parks, a bill that Congress passed and President Bush quickly signed into law. During the sharp economic downturn of 2008, he called for ramping up food stamp subsidies (he would get his wish after Barack Obama had become president). And in 2011, he proposed a constitutional amendment for "equal education rights" which among other things would mandate that every student in America receive an iPad from the federal government. His wife, Sandra, now 49, also was an up and comer. She won a seat as a city alderman in the Chicago general elections of February 2007.</p>
<p>Not only did the rise of Jesse Jackson Jr. presage the presidential election of Barack Obama, to an extent Jackson&nbsp;made that election possible. The two long had worked with each other, as Obama's Illinois Senate district overlapped with Jackson's congressional district. Jackson served as a national co-chairman of the Obama campaign in 2008 and gave a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention on Obama's behalf. Alluding to Martin Luther King's "mountaintop" speech, he noted of the nominee: "I know Barack Obama. I've seen his leadership work. I've seen the difference he has made in the lives of people across Illinois." In defending Obama, Jesse Jr. even was willing to cross swords with his father. When Jesse Sr. wrote an op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times criticizing Obama's supposed lack of progressive activism, Jackson wrote a letter to the paper defending Obama. He also publicly rebuked his father's offhand comment (near a live microphone) during the 2008 campaign that he would like to "cut [Obama's] nuts off."</p>
<p>If loyalty to political allies was one trait of the younger Jackson, corruptibility was another. As National Legal and Policy Center has described at length, he almost without question was a participant in a web of illegal schemes to raise campaign donations for then-Illinois Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich during the campaign season of 2008, and the weeks beyond. The reward for such fundraising would be an appointment to a U.S. Senate seat whose vacancy was made possible by Barack Obama's election as president. Jackson was never charged in that investigation. Yet federal prosecutors had amassed substantial evidence that he had instructed his chief fundraiser, Raghuveer Nayak, <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/09/27/jesse-jackson-jr-denies-role-6m-scheme-bankroll-blagojevich">to generate $6 million</a> for the governor's political war chest. Gov. Blagojevich explained his philosophy this way: "A Senate seat is a fucking valuable thing...You don't just give it away for&nbsp;nothing." Jackson, knowing how the game was played, appeared willing to do what it took to get that seat.</p>
<p>But the feds had been onto the governor for some time. Based on information gathered by court-approved wiretaps and listening devices, FBI agents during the wee hours of December 9, 2008 <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2008/12/15/illinois-governor-aide-arrested-probe-senate-appointment">arrested Gov. Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris</a>. Any hopes that Jackson would get the job went up in smoke that morning. The next day, in fact, he was contacted by federal prosecutors as to some specifics about Blagojevich's search for Obama's replacement. The nod eventually would go to former Illinois State Comptroller and Attorney General Roland Burris. Blagojevich, meanwhile, wouldn't be long for the political world. In January 2009, the Illinois legislature expelled him from office. And in June 2011, a federal jury, following an earlier mistrial on 23 of 24 charges, found the former governor <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/07/07/blagojevich-guilty-17-20-counts-case-only-partly-reveals-culture-corruption">guilty of 17 of 20 offenses</a>.</p>
<p>Jesse Jackson Jr. dodged a bullet in this affair. But he couldn't escape a darker personal reality. In June 2012, during his&nbsp;re-election campaign, Jackson, without informing his House colleagues or anyone in the press, took an extended leave of absence. This was most unusual for someone who almost never missed a roll call vote. Across the nation, people were asking, "Where's Jesse?" It turned out that, among possibly other places,&nbsp;he had&nbsp;checked into the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. In late July <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/jesse-jackson-jr-mayo-clinic-depression-023156751.html">the&nbsp;clinic&nbsp;issued a statement</a>&nbsp;that he was being treated for bipolar disorder, depression and related physical illnesses. The revelations didn't faze too many voters in his district, who returned him to Congress by an overwhelming margin in the November general election. But Jackson couldn't savor his victory. Less than three weeks later, he resigned his House seat. Apparently, he had seen another political storm coming.</p>
<p>The storm was about money and the things it buys. Like his father, Jesse Jr. had a fondness for the good life. Indeed, the two had co-written a book&nbsp;published in 1999 titled, "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Its-About-Money-Achieve-Financial/dp/081293296X">It's About the Money!: How You Can Get out of Debt, Build Wealth, and Achieve Your Financial Dreams</a>." With&nbsp;perhaps&nbsp;unintended&nbsp;irony, the Jacksons wrote:&nbsp;"Many of our churches breed material needs, as do many of our public schools, with peer pressure to buy expensive clothing." Achieving financial dreams, however, can be illegal as well as expensive. Jesse Jackson Jr. might not have been aware of what federal prosecutors and FBI agents would find when in October 2012 they announced a probe into his misuse of campaign donations. But it's hard to imagine that the investigation wasn't related to his decision to step down from Congress three months ago, especially given his precarious mental and physical condition. And with a deferred&nbsp;<a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/10/25/case-jesse-jackson-jr-test-house-ethics-commitee">House Ethics Committee investigation</a> now finally getting off the ground,&nbsp;Jackson sensed the end was near.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>The results of the probe and the resulting court case revealed&nbsp;Rep. and Mrs. Jackson to be possessed of&nbsp;varied interests. According to the written summary of the prosecution, Jackson made around $750,000 in unauthorized withdrawals from campaign funds starting in or around August 2005, mainly via more than 3,000 credit card transactions. There were the mundane purchases, of course - dry cleaning, restaurant meals, and trips to Costco. But there also were expenditures that fell under the "What the hell?" category. <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2013-02-21/news/37223879_1_michael-jackson-memorabilia-jesse-l-jackson-jimi-hendrix-memorabilia">The latter included</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>$26,700 - Michael Jackson memorabilia, including a $4,600 fedora</p>
<p>$5,000 - fur capes and parkas</p>
<p>$5,000 - a football signed by U.S. presidents</p>
<p>$2,200 - Malcolm X memorabilia</p>
<p>$10,105 - Bruce Lee memorabilia</p>
<p>$10,000 - multiple flat-screen TVs and DVD players from Best Buy</p>
<p>$5,600 - a five-day holistic retreat on Martha's Vineyard for a family member</p>
<p>$9,588 - children's furniture</p>
<p>$11,130 - Martin Luther King memorabilia</p>
<p>$43,350 - a gold-plated Rolex watch</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The old saying about money goes, "If you've got it, flaunt it." But Jesse Jackson Jr. didn't have it. Or if he did, he preferred to use what came from other people - like unsuspecting donors. The Federal Election Commission and other authorities weren't amused. "This was not a momentary lapse or a short streak of compulsive behavior," <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/jackson-admits-misusing-campaign-funds/2013/02/20/5ab581f0-7b64-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html">said U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen Jr.</a> at a news conference. "He lied many times over many years to hide this fraud from the government and his constituents."</p>
<p>Jackson, to his credit, took responsibility for his actions. "I did these things," <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/jackson-admits-misusing-campaign-funds/2013/02/20/5ab581f0-7b64-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html">he stated</a> before Judge Wilkins who had read the bill of particulars. Then, trying to hold back tears, he pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit false statements, mail fraud and wire fraud. His father, from whom he learned much, sat in the front row during the proceedings. In the hallway, after the hearing, the former congressman said to a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times: "Tell everybody back home I'm sorry I let them down, okay?" Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, he faces anywhere from 46 to 57 months in prison at his sentencing hearing in June. His wife also faces anywhere from a year to two years in prison after pleading guilty to knowingly underreporting income on federal tax returns for 2006 through 2011. As for finding a replacement for Rep. Jackson, that should be resolved soon. A Democratic primary is set for next Tuesday.&nbsp;Cook County Chief Administrative Officer&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/all_signs_point_to_kelly_victory_in_unpredictable_special_election-222545-1.html">Robin Kelly</a> and former Rep. <a href="http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2013/02/fact_checking_bloomberg_ads_ag.html">Debbie Halvorson</a>, in that order,&nbsp;are considered the leading candidates in a crowded field which includes - would you believe? - <a href="http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/16676857-418/mel-reynolds-announces-congressional-run-admits-mistakes.html">Mel Reynolds</a>. The winner would be a virtual lock in the April 9 special election. <br /><br />Jesse Jackson Jr. isn't exactly&nbsp;the first member of Congress&nbsp;with an ethical blind spot when it comes to&nbsp;campaign funding.&nbsp;<a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/01/31/sen-menendez-pushed-windfall-melgen-dominican-port-security-deal">Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.</a>, now facing accusations of a far more serious nature, spent thousands of dollars in political donations&nbsp;at a Morton's Steakhouse in Washington, D.C. The late <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-10-18/politics/35279393_1_murtha-pennsylvania-democrat-defense-appropriations-chairman">Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.</a>,&nbsp;drew upon large sums of campaign donations illegally&nbsp;raised by the head of a defense industry lobbying group where Murtha's brother worked.&nbsp;And former <a href="http://libertarian-neocon.blogspot.com/2012/01/is-rick-santorum-corrupt.html">Senator Rick Santorum, R-Pa.</a>, for several years during the last decade made extensive withdrawals from a political action committee and a charity with heavily overlapping donor lists for various family expenditures. But none of this should give Jesse Jackson Jr., with or without bipolar disorder, a free pass. As for Jesse Jackson Sr., he's still reveling in the good life.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/10/25/case-jesse-jackson-jr-test-house-ethics-commitee">Case of Jesse Jackson, Jr. is Test for House Ethics Committee</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/07/07/blagojevich-guilty-17-20-counts-case-only-partly-reveals-culture-corruption">Blagojevich Conviction Only Partly Reveals Culture of Corruption</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/09/27/jesse-jackson-jr-denies-role-6m-scheme-bankroll-blagojevich">Jesse Jackson Jr. Denies Role in $6M Scheme to Bankroll Blagojevich</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/05/09/lloyd-blankfein-plays-dumb-goldman-sachs-support-jesse-jackson">Lloyd Blankfein Plays Dumb on Goldman Sachs Support for Jesse Jackson</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2008/12/15/illinois-governor-aide-arrested-probe-senate-appointment">Illinois Governor, Aide Arrested in Probe of Senate Appointment</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Barack ObamacorruptionGovernment Integrity ProjectJesse JacksonJesse Jackson Jr.Rod BlagojevichSandi JacksonshakedownsFri, 22 Feb 2013 17:08:19 +0000Carl Horowitz4380 at http://nlpc.orgSharpton Annual Conference Again Heavily Corporate-Fundedhttp://nlpc.org/stories/2012/05/02/sharpton-annual-conference-again-heavily-corporate-funded
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/images[11]_20.jpg" border="0" alt="Al Sharpton" width="200" height="150" />Whatever else might be said of Reverend Al Sharpton, when he throws a party, he does it in style. The 14th annual conference of his New York-based nonprofit <a href="http://nationalactionnetwork.net/">National Action Network (NAN)</a> last month in Washington, D.C. during April 11-14 was no exception. Once more, corporations and to a lesser extent unions paid most of the tab for a well-choreographed event that featured dozens of speakers and panelists eager to affirm the aggressive black identity politics of their host. <a href="http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/ag/speeches/2012/ag-speech-120411.html">The plenary address by Attorney General Eric Holder</a>, followed by a panel on legal issues, amounted to a group manifesto for the arrest of George Zimmerman for the highly-publicized killing - evidence points toward self-defense - of a black Florida teen, Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman, to the delight of virtually all attendees, was arrested that day on a state second-degree murder charge.<!--break-->&nbsp;</p>
<p>National Legal and Policy Center repeatedly during the past several years has analyzed the troubling legacy of Al Sharpton, most thoroughly in a 2009 Special Report, "Mainstreaming Demagoguery: Al Sharpton's Rise to Respectability" (<a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/05/14/new-nlpc-special-report-exposes-real-al-sharpton">see pdf</a>). Since the mid-Eighties "The Rev," as he is known, has amassed a long track record of demagoguery under the guise of social justice and civil rights. Typically, he serves as an "adviser" to a black family one of whose members is a victim of a crime allegedly committed by a white or group of whites. He is assuming this role with Trayvon Martin's parents. This is a major reason why the case has received so much nationwide publicity; the parents brought in Sharpton as their "adviser" precisely because of his ability to generate media coverage. Indeed, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photos/left-rev-al-sharpton-trayvon-martins-parents-sybrina-photo-071643655.html">he and the couple shared the stage</a> on day one of the conference.</p>
<p>Sharpton has a double standard when it comes to crime that crosses racial lines. In his mind, a white individual shouldn't be able to enjoy a presumption of innocence&nbsp;if&nbsp;accused of committing a crime against a black. Even if the accused, by every reasonable appearance, has acted in self-defense (Bernhard Goetz), is falsely targeted in a hoax (police in the Tawana Brawley case), or commits an honest police error (the Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell cases), an accusation ought to suffice as guilt. But when a black is accused of a crime against a white, then Sharpton and his minions demand a presumption of innocence. They also go further in such situations, creating a menacing climate to make it virtually impossible to secure a conviction, even if evidence supports a guilty verdict (the Central Park pack attack). In both types of situations, Sharpton has displayed an unyielding goal of manipulating public opinion with morally-charged incitements. His campaigns&nbsp;even have inspired rioting and&nbsp;murder (Brooklyn's Crown Heights, Harlem's Freddy's Fashion Mart). If the George Zimmerman case goes to trial and the jury doesn't return a guilty verdict, Sharpton, if only tacitly, may incite blacks across the country to go on a rampage in the name of "justice," even though as of late he has been disingenuously playing the role of peacemaker.</p>
<p>Despite, and in some measure because of, his track record, Sharpton's stock as a public figure has risen rapidly over the years - talk about "defining deviance down!" As a Democrat, he ran for U.S. senator from New York in 1992 and 1994, New York City mayor in 1997 (he very nearly forced a primary runoff in that one), and president of the United States in 2004. But it's as a media figure in which he has taken central stage. For the last several years he has hosted a popular syndicated daily radio talk show out of his Harlem headquarters, and beginning last August, has served as six o'clock news anchorman on MSNBC-TV. His National Action Network conferences in recent years have featured such luminaries as Bill Cosby, Mariah Carey, Martin Luther King III, Magic Johnson, Judge Greg Mathis, various Obama cabinet secretaries, and last year, the ultimate guest, <a href="http://www.essence.com/2011/04/07/president-barack-obama-rev-al-sharpton-national-action-network/">President Obama himself</a> (Obama earlier had spoken at NAN's 2007 conference while as a U.S. senator from Illinois). Sharpton also has reached across the aisle to build friendships with such figures on the Right as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, television host Bill O'Reilly and former Republican National Chairman Michael Steele. Major print media, including <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/08/16/newsweek-puff-piece-sharpton-distorts-reality">Newsweek</a> and the <a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/03/18/wall-street-journal-touts-new-pragmatic-al-sharpton">Wall Street Journal</a>, in 2010 ran accounts revealing how Al Sharpton in recent years supposedly has renounced extremism and histrionics in favor of pragmatism, common sense and empathy. The upshot of this successful image makeover is that Sharpton, now 57, almost without question has become the most influential black civil rights leader in America, even more so than his one-time mentor, Jesse Jackson.</p>
<p>Money, like brinksmanship and media coverage, is a key ingredient in Reverend Sharpton's movement into the American mainstream. From experience as well as instinct, Sharpton knows that the people running corporations, labor unions, philanthropies and other formal organizations can be coaxed into making donations to National Action Network. All it takes is the right mix of intimidation and flattery. Like Jesse Jackson, he sees corporate officials in particular as fearful of boycotts, demonstrations and anything other activity that could bring bad publicity and thus undercut profits. No company wants to be stigmatized as "racist." Donating to Sharpton amounts to a payoff - a civil rights tax, if one will. He's even willing to accept public criticism from his donors so long as they keep NAN coffers filled. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/al-sharptons-second-act-power-player/2012/04/13/gIQAZT4wFT_story.html">He noted the irony in an interview</a> with the Washington Post during this April's confab: "They bash me at Fox News. But they sponsor my conference." His comment was accurate. Fox News' parent company, The News Corporation, is listed in the program as a sponsor.</p>
<p>That brings us to the issue of the sponsors. According to National Action Network, sponsorship requires a minimum contribution of $5,000, though&nbsp;donations can run as high&nbsp;as $100,000. Corporations&nbsp;this time around included repeat donors such as&nbsp;American Honda, Coca-Cola, Ford Motor Company, Home Depot, McDonald's and Wal-Mart. Yet they also included&nbsp;newcomers&nbsp;such as Facebook and Mars Inc. Organized labor also made its presence known in the form of the National Education Association, the International Association of Machinists, the New York-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Locals 1199 and 32BJ, and the United Federation of Teachers, which is New York City's American Federation of Teachers affiliate. The following is a list, in alphabetical order, of all 42 sponsors:</p>
<p>Advent Capital<br />All the Way Foundation, Dennis &amp; Karen Mehiel<br />American Honda Motor Company<br />Ariel Investments, LLC<br />AT&amp;T<br />Best Buy<br />Black Entertainment Television<br />Coca-Cola Company<br />Comcast/NBCUniversal<br />Con Edison<br />CVS Caremark<br />Entergy<br />Facebook<br />FedEx<br />Ford Motor Company<br />General Electric<br />GlobalHue<br />Home Depot<br />Human Rights Campaign<br />International Association of Machinists and<br />&nbsp; Aerospace Workers<br />Jackson Lewis LLP<br />LawCash<br />Macy's Inc.<br />Mars Incorporated<br />McDonald's<br />NASCAR<br />National Education Association<br />Ira Newman<br />The News Corporation<br />OraSure Technologies Inc.<br />PepsiCo<br />Perennial Strategy Group<br />SEIU Local 32BJ<br />SEIU Local 1199<br />ServiceMaster<br />Sony Music<br />Sports Medicine<br />SUPERVALU<br />United Federation of Teachers<br />UPS Foundation<br />Verizon<br />Wal-Mart</p>
<p>The people who run these organizations genuinely believe that by donating funds to National Action Network, they are serving their own interests and those of business generally. We at National Legal and Policy Center believe they are wrong. Contributing money to a Sharpton-controlled nonprofit group merely buys a company time to avoid a bad reputation and a potentially costly "discrimination" lawsuit. What's more, it sends a signal to racial provocateurs like Sharpton that corporations everywhere are easy marks for shakedowns. Worst of all, it provides NAN with the money needed to carry on its never-ending war against "injustice" with a high degree of visibility and legitimacy.</p>
<p>National Action Network came into being in 1991 and has been holding annual conferences and accompanying "Keepers of the Dream" awards ceremonies since 1999 (Note: This year, the Keepers of the Dream banquet was held in New York City, separately from the conference, on April 18). Nobody is disparaging Sharpton's right to hold these events. But what should be disparaged is the fact that major organizations, especially corporations answerable to shareholders, are paying for them. If NAN wants to hold conferences, dues-paying members and other individuals should cover all expenses.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/09/10/sharptons-finances-disarray-despite-bloomberg-aid">Sharpton's Finances in Disarray despite Bloomberg Support</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/08/16/newsweek-puff-piece-sharpton-distorts-reality">Newsweek Puff Piece on Sharpton Distorts Reality</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/04/28/sharptons-arizona-mission-corporate-and-union-sponsored">Sharpton's Arizona Mission: Corporate- and Union-Sponsored</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/04/19/new-al-sharpton-draws-praise-obama-top-officials">&lsquo;New' Al Sharpton Draws Praise from Obama, Top Officials</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/03/18/wall-street-journal-touts-new-pragmatic-al-sharpton">Wall Street Journal Is Wrong About New, &lsquo;Pragmatic' Al Sharpton</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/05/14/new-nlpc-special-report-exposes-real-al-sharpton">New NLPC Report Exposes the Real Al Sharpton</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Al SharptonBarack ObamaCorporate Integrity Projectcorporate shakedownsJesse JacksonNational Action Network (NAN)Wed, 02 May 2012 16:31:15 +0000Carl Horowitz3972 at http://nlpc.orgObama Fails 'Uniter' Test on Trayvon Martin Incidenthttp://nlpc.org/stories/2012/04/03/obama-fails-uniter-test-trayvon-martin-incident
<p><img style="float: right; border: 0pt none;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/Obama &amp; Sharpton.jpg" border="0" alt="Obama &amp; Sharpton photo" width="225" height="196" />This past weekend saw further escalation of nationwide demonstrations over the fatal February 26 shooting of a black Florida teenager, Trayvon Martin, by a white neighborhood watch volunteer. Though in apparent self-defense, many are demanding the shooter, George Zimmerman, be arrested. In lieu of such action, some are vowing to apply their brand of street justice. Unfortunately, they have an ally in President Obama.<!--break-->&nbsp;Speaking before reporters outside the White House on Friday, March 23, Obama implied Martin was a victim of a racially-motivated murder and cover-up. His defining line - "You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon" - very likely gave undeserved credibility to "civil rights" demagogues such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. A state grand jury is set to convene on April 10. And the U.S. Justice Department now has launched a probe.</p>
<p>Whenever a particular act or threat of violence in this country crosses racial lines, truth is usually the first casualty. More to the point, what has reigned over the past few decades is an unwritten rule enforced by the Sharptons and Jacksons of this country: Black crime against whites isn't newsworthy; white crime against blacks is. What's more, if a white is the alleged perpetrator, he faces a presumption of guilt, regardless of the evidence. What matters is fulfilling the larger assumption of black suffering in a white-dominated society. Facts, in this view, shouldn't get in the way of this assumption. If they do, they must be ignored or distorted. This view, incessantly peddled by black activists, has become the coin of the realm in much of journalism, politics, law and academia. <a href="http://www.vdare.com/articles/gop-wouldnt-challenge-black-voter-fraud-in-2008-why-would-it-challenge-trayvon-martin-lynch">Even the Republican Party</a>, supposedly opposed to official racial favoritism, is&nbsp;petrified of challenging this new orthodoxy.&nbsp;This orthodoxy&nbsp;has led to witch-hunt atmospheres awaiting any white defendant accused, even if falsely, of a crime against a black. Even if the defendant is exonerated - as in the case of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Until-Proven-Innocent-Correctness-Injustices/dp/0312369123">patently fraudulent charges</a> brought against three white Duke University lacrosse players for their "rape" of a local black stripper in March 2006 - their finances and reputations may wind up permanently damaged.</p>
<p>The widespread negative reaction to the shooting in alleged self-defense by George Zimmerman of Trayvon Martin fits this pattern. It has reached a virtually hysterical pitch, most of all among blacks.&nbsp;To understand why this climate is poisonous, and why President Obama grievously erred in playing to it, it is necessary to get a grip on the shooting and&nbsp;what led up to it.&nbsp;Here are the key facts, according to&nbsp;<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/trayvon-martin-case-timeline-of-events/">ABC</a>, <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-30/justice/justice_florida-teen-shooting-timeline_1_gated-community-twin-lakes-news-conference?_s=PM:JUSTICE">CNN</a>, <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-26/news/os-trayvon-martin-timeline-20120326_1_shooting-sanford-police">the Orlando Sentinel</a>, and "911" eyewitness police calls to police, among other sources.</p>
<p>It was a rainy evening, a little after&nbsp;7 P.M., on February 26 in Sanford, Florida, a fast-growing city of more than 50,000 in Seminole County near Orlando. In recent years, Sanford had been experiencing a sharp upswing of burglaries and other crimes, enough of one at any rate to form a citizen anti-crime&nbsp;patrol. Zimmerman, a mixed-race white (his mother is Peruvian), age 28, served as a patrol captain. Like any person in his position, his understood that his job was to observe and report; i.e., he should let&nbsp;police handle any potentially dangerous situation. But under extreme circumstances, it is understandable why even this rule might be broken.&nbsp;And this was an extreme&nbsp;evening. Zimmerman, while driving his vehicle on an errand,&nbsp;came across a teenaged pedestrian whom he felt could be dangerous. His name was Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black high school student from Miami Gardens in Dade County. Martin looked to be&nbsp;at least&nbsp;6'0." And he didn't look weak.&nbsp;He'd&nbsp;come up to&nbsp;Sanford with his father for a temporary stay&nbsp;with the father's&nbsp;girlfriend&nbsp;during a 10-day school suspension -&nbsp;not his first&nbsp;either. Significantly, he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, or "hoodie." It's common knowledge that people who dress this way often have a crime to hide.&nbsp;In other words, quite apart from race, many people might have viewed Martin, <a href="http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2012/04/02/apsu-students-rally-to-remember-trayvon-martin">hardly the "child" his supporters imagine him to have been</a>,&nbsp;with a certain measure of suspicion.</p>
<p>George Zimmerman was suspicious when he saw Martin walk down the street, returning from a convenience store. His destination was the father's girlfriend's residence in a&nbsp;gated townhome complex, The Retreat at Twin Lakes. Zimmerman followed him. Once inside the complex, he observed Martin veer off the main street and onto&nbsp;a path between two rows of townhouses. Martin, aware he was being watched, began to run. Zimmerman got out of his vehicle,&nbsp;gave chase, but soon lost him. He then <a href="http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Upcoming-Grand-Jury-in-Trayvon-Martin-Case-Will-Be-Turning-Point-144730725.html">called a non-emergency police number</a> to indicate this guy could be a suspect. The dispatcher asked, "Are you following him?" Zimmerman said "yes." The dispatcher replied, "We don't need you to do that." An important distinction must be made here: The dispatcher was telling Zimmerman that he didn't <em>have</em> to follow the suspect, not that he <em>couldn't</em>. Zimmerman, though not in formal violation of a police directive had he continued his search, decided not to give further chase.</p>
<p>But if he couldn't find&nbsp;Trayvon Martin, suddenly&nbsp;Trayvon Martin found him. From behind a building,&nbsp;the teen suddenly&nbsp;stepped directly in front of&nbsp;Zimmerman&nbsp;and asked him&nbsp;menacingly, "What's your problem, homie?" Zimmerman responded, likely with more than a touch of fear, that he didn't have a problem. Zimmerman then reached for his cell phone. Martin quickly responded, "You do now," charged at Zimmerman, and then decked him with a sucker punch in the nose. The blow knocked Zimmerman to the pavement. Rather than be satisfied that he made his (highly illegal) point, Martin pressed his advantage. He pinned a prone, face-up Zimmerman, and slammed his head against the ground. When Zimmerman yelled, Martin told him to shut up and hit him again, and told him he was going to kill him.&nbsp;Zimmerman now had every reason to fear for his life. Fortunately, he had the means to save it.&nbsp;Zimmerman pulled out a handgun from his pocket and, after a brief struggle, fired a&nbsp;shot at close range, hitting Martin in the chest. "You got me," Martin said, falling backward. When police arrived at the scene, they found Martin lying on the ground. He would die about 7:30 PM. Zimmerman was alive, but with a broken&nbsp;nose and a deep cut on the back of his head.</p>
<p>Police,&nbsp;on the scene in response to a number of emergency "911" calls,&nbsp;took Zimmerman into custody for questioning. Following interrogation, they decided against arresting&nbsp;him. Sanford Police Chief Billy Lee had concluded there was no evidence to dispute Zimmerman's assertion of having <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/videogallery/69056719/News/Trayvon-Martin-case-Martin-was-the-aggressor-police-sources-say">acted in self-defense</a>. First-person statements support this conclusion. <a href="http://www.debbieschlussel.com/48357/if-barack-obama-had-a-son-would-he-be-a-violent-thug-like-trayvon-martin/">Sanford Police Officer Timothy Smith indicated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>While I was in such close contact with Zimmerman, I could observe that his back appeared to be wet and covered in grass, as if he had been laying on his back on the ground. Zimmerman was also bleeding from the nose and back of his head...While the SPD was attending to Zimmerman, I overheard him state, "I was yelling for someone to help me, but no one would help me."</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/state/witness-martin-attacked-zimmerman-03232012">An unnamed witness</a> who was not a police officer corroborated this view. Here is one published summary of the account:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The guy on the bottom, who had a red sweater on, was yelling at me, &lsquo;Help! Help!' and I told him to stop and I was calling 911," said the witness, who asked to be identified only by his first name, John.</p>
<p>John said he locked his patio door, ran upstairs and hear at least one gun shot.</p>
<p>And then, when I got upstairs and looked down, the guy who was on top beating up the other guy, was the one laying in the grass, and I believe he was dead at that point.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's hard to avoid concluding that Zimmerman acted in self-defense against a criminal assault, potentially a lethal one, by Martin.</p>
<p>Martin's supporters, beginning with his parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, dispute this account. "That was bull," said the elder Martin. "No way. At that point, I knew there was something terribly wrong." Adding fuel to their fire was a video obtained by ABC News and shown on news outlets throughout the country showing Zimmerman in handcuffs being taken into police custody with no visible injuries or bleeding. Those who see this rather grainy footage as catching Zimmerman in a lie, however, overlook the possibility that he had received emergency medical treatment. Moreover, they ignore the fact that an enhanced video released yesterday <a href="http://www.spiceislandertalkshop.com/cgi-bin/talkrec.cgi?submit=lt&amp;fid=f1&amp;msg_num=816942">showed clear evidence of trauma</a> to the back of Zimmerman's head.</p>
<p>Yet for the sake of argument, let's assume that this wasn't a case of self-defense and that Zimmerman's wounds were superficial at best. The reality remains: <em>Zimmerman hasn't been charged with anything.</em> And if he eventually is indicted, he deserves to be tried in court and not before baying, seething mobs. The whole point of a criminal justice system in any society is to marginalize vigilante passions, not cater to them. Public officials, beginning at the top, have a special responsibility to ensure an orderly procedure through&nbsp;which evidence can be introduced and explained.</p>
<p>By the time President Obama rendered his opinion on March 23, a campaign by Martin's supporters to vilify Zimmerman was well underway and had reached fever pitch. Martin's parents, family members and attorneys on March 8&nbsp;held a press conference calling attention to the case. On March 14, the parents created a petition on the website Change.org calling for Zimmerman's arrest. By March 21, petition&nbsp;had generated nearly 900,000 signatures. The attorney for the parents, Benjamin Crump, verified they had received a flood of media inquiries, in one particular day&nbsp;more than 400 media calls. On March 22, Sanford Police Chief Lee, under intense local pressure, announced he would "temporarily" step down. That day Martin's parents met with officials from the U.S. Justice Department. And Reverend Al Sharpton conveniently had come down from New York to give an incendiary speech before thousands in Sanford's Fort Mellon Park. On March 23, the day of Obama's statement, students at about 50 schools across Florida staged a walkout in support of Trayvon Martin. By now, the Change.org petition had gathered a whopping 1.5 million signatures.</p>
<p>This explosive situation called for transcending hysteria, not tacitly endorsing it. President Obama, unfortunately, chose the latter. Here is one account of <a href="http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2012/03/27/lynching-george-zimmerman/">the president's response</a> to a reporter's question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this," Mr. Obama said. "All of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen."</p>
<p>"Obviously, this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through," Mr. Obama said, his face grim. "When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids."</p>
<p>"You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Mr. Obama said, pausing for a moment. "I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves and we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Stripped of his piety, the president was implying&nbsp;this was a murder and police cover-up very likely possessed of racial motives. His words at minimum implied that we need a special federal prosecutor to get the real story, and over the long run, yet another (rigged) "national conversation" on race.</p>
<p>Yet if Obama was of a truly objective cast of mind, he easily could have said that Sanford police from the start <em>have</em> been trying to get all relevant facts. He could have stated that rule of law, not rule by mob, is the way justice works in America. And he could have pointed out that Zimmerman is entitled to a presumption of innocence. At the very least, he could have refrained from likening Trayvon Martin to the son he never had. Unfortunately, he did the opposite.</p>
<p>There are, however, many black voices employing highly unguarded language. Several can be found on Capitol Hill. Last Wednesday morning, Rep. <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/218691-rep-bobby-rush-kicked-off-house-floor-for-wearing-hoodie">Bobby Rush</a>, D-Ill., as an act of solidarity with Martin, wore a gray hoodie and sunglasses, and delivered a speech from the House floor calling for a full federal investigation. "Racial profiling has got to stop," he said. "Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum." He then was escorted off the floor by the House sergeant-at-arms for inappropriate dress. Rep. <a href="http://wayofthemammoth.com/">Hank Johnson</a>, D-Ga., called the shooting an "execution." Rep. <a href="http://thehill.com/video/house/218677-rep-waters-stiff-evidence-death-of-trayvon-martin-a-hate-crime-">Maxine Waters</a>, D-Calif., proclaimed, "I, personally, really truly believe this is a hate crime," in a joint interview on CNN with Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Rep. <a href="http://thehill.com/video/house/218677-rep-waters-stiff-evidence-death-of-trayvon-martin-a-hate-crime-">Emanuel Cleaver</a>, D-Mo. Cleaver, for his part, stated, "The issue is the low esteem in which black life is held, particularly black males."</p>
<p>Hard as it is to believe, these are voices of moderation compared to those of top black "civil rights" leaders. Jesse Jackson, just back from a foreign policy mission in Geneva, Switzerland, declared in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, "Blacks are under attack." <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-trayvon-martin-case-jesse-jackson-20120323,0,2131299.story">He elaborated</a>: "Our disparities are great. Targeting, arresting, convicting blacks, and ultimately killing us, is big business." Making the jump from a single incident to systematic genocide is a stretch even for the hyperbole-prone Jackson. <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/30/kill-george-zimmerman/">Al Sharpton</a>, in his speech in Sanford, declared: "We came for permanent justice. Arrest Zimmerman now! That's what this rally is about." It's noteworthy that Sharpton, now a full-time news anchorman for MSNBC, is creating as well as reporting on a news story. Some might call this <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/25/al-sharpton-s-conflicting-roles-in-the-trayvon-martin-case.html">a conflict of interest</a>. Worse yet was Nation of Islam leader <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/farrakhan-tweets-where-there-is-no-justice-there-will-be-no-peace-law-of-retaliation-may-be-applied/">Louis Farrakhan</a>. Minister Farrakhan, apparently not technology-averse, sent this ominous Twitter message to followers: "Where there is no justice, there will be no peace. Soon the law of retaliation may very well be applied." In another tweet, he stated, "Let us see what kind of justice will come for his bereaved family and our bereaved community." By any reasonable definition, Farrakhan's statements constitute incitements to murder.</p>
<p>Other statements have been even more inflammatory. The New Black Panther Party <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/30/kill-george-zimmerman/">is offering a $10,000 bounty</a> for Zimmerman's death, and for good measure, has circulated a "Wanted: Dead or Alive" poster. It's hard to see the humor; the group's leader, Mikhail Muhummud, has declared, "God dammit, he should be fearful for his life." A new Twitter account, "<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/30/kill-george-zimmerman/">KillZimmerman</a>," shows a photo&nbsp;of Zimmerman with a bulls-eye superimposed over his head. The page reads, "This Page Is 4 Da Ppl Who Believe Zimmerman Should Be Shot Dead In the Street." Here is one of its messages: "Every1 is going to die one day sum ppl deserve to die today." Another group, New Black Liberation Militia, has announced it is sending members to the Orlando area to "attempt a citizen's arrest" of Zimmerman. A&nbsp;t-shirt featuring a photo&nbsp;of George Zimmerman&nbsp;framed by the words "<a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/trayvon-martin/cracker-tshirt-759832">Pussy Ass Cracker</a>," is now available for purchase. And black filmmaker Spike Lee ("Do the Right Thing," "Jungle Fever," "Malcolm X") <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-29/spike-lee-trayvon-martin/53873206/1">re-tweeted to followers</a> the home address of George Zimmerman - or so he thought. The address turned out to be that of an elderly Florida couple, Elaine and David McClain, who have a son living at home named William George Zimmerman, an entirely different person than George Zimmerman. This case of mistaken identity triggered a barrage of hate mail to the couple, who had to flee temporarily for their own safety. Though Lee since has apologized and settled with the couple's attorney for damages, that doesn't erase the fact of his intent to incite.</p>
<p>George Zimmerman - the real one - is now in hiding, along with his family. He obviously has good reason not to be found. He does, however, have people in his corner. That includes family members speaking from undisclosed locations. On March 28, <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-30/justice/justice_florida-teen-shooting-timeline_1_gated-community-twin-lakes-news-conference/3?_s=PM:JUSTICE">his father, Robert</a>, appeared on television to assert&nbsp;that Trayvon Martin had threatened to kill his son and beat him to the point where his son had to use his gun. The next day, <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-30/justice/justice_florida-teen-shooting-timeline_1_gated-community-twin-lakes-news-conference/3?_s=PM:JUSTICE">George Zimmerman's brother, Robert Jr.</a>, appeared on CNN and asserted that medical records will prove that his brother was attacked and that his nose was broken. A black man, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmermans-attorney-friend-speak-trayvon-martin-incident/story?id=15999256">Joe Oliver</a>, who describes himself as a close friend of George Zimmerman, appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" and said that his friend fears for his life. Finally, Zimmerman's attorney, Craig Sonner, told ABC News that evidence will come out in court that his client had suffered a broken nose and a head injury before pulling out his gun.</p>
<p>The question now arises: Has President Obama provided moral cover for the public hanging jury? It's entirely possible. What's more, even if he hasn't, he has refused to denounce the murderous sentiments. And he hasn't repudiated his March 23 statement. A federal investigation, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-justice-department-investigate-trayvon-martin-killing/story?id=15955985">announced by the Justice Department two weeks ago</a>, is now in the beginning stages. The FBI, the department's Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida plan to conduct a joint review of all evidence and take "appropriate" action. With Attorney General Eric Holder leading the charge, federal prosecutors have every incentive to "discover" a crime committed by Zimmerman. Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott has asked state officials to assist in the investigation. On March 22, Scott also announced the <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/gubernatorial/article1221406.ece">appointment of State's Attorney Angela Corey</a>, 4th Judicial Circuit, as special&nbsp;prosecutor in the case, effectively replacing&nbsp;Norman Wolfinger.</p>
<p>In a larger sense, President Obama implicitly has endorsed the black demagoguery that has made reasonable discussion of race in this country almost impossible. Rather than repudiate hustlers like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters, he appears eager to join them. For him, as for the more noisy voices, white-on-black crime, even if the "crime" is an apparent act of self-defense, is a national problem. Black-on-white and&nbsp;black-on-black crime --&nbsp;<a href="http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_sndgs01.html">each&nbsp;far more common</a> -- barely&nbsp;register on their radar screen. In Sarasota, Florida last week, a 17-year-old black youth, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9172615/Sarasota-murder-Shawn-Tyson-found-guilty-of-murdering-British-tourists.html">Shawn Tyson</a>, was found guilty by a jury of murdering two young white British tourists, James Cooper and James Kouzaris, last year. Tyson had attempted to rob the pair, but then shot each through the heart when they said they had no money. Just before opening fire, Tyson said, "If you ain't got no money, I got something for you ass." When Obama can send his sympathies to the families of Cooper and Kouzaris, his sympathies toward the late Trayvon Martin might ring halfway true.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/08/25/obama-issues-executive-order-mandating-racial-favoritism">Obama Issues Executive Order Mandating Racial Favoritism</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/06/22/new-survey-data-justifies-arrest-henry-louis-gates">New Study Justifies Arrest of Henry Louis Gates</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/04/19/new-al-sharpton-draws-praise-obama-top-officials">&lsquo;New' Al Sharpton Draws Praise from Obama, Top Officials</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/03/18/wall-street-journal-touts-new-pragmatic-al-sharpton">Wall Street Journal Is Wrong About New, &lsquo;Pragmatic' Al Sharpton</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/05/14/new-nlpc-special-report-exposes-real-al-sharpton">New NLPC Special Report Exposes the Real Al Sharpton</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/07/23/why-obama-wrong-about-henry-louis-gates">Why Obama Is Wrong About Henry Louis Gates</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Al SharptonBarack ObamaGeorge ZimmermanGovernment Integrity ProjectJesse JacksonLouis FarrakhanTrayvon MartinU.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)White Housewitch huntsTue, 03 Apr 2012 15:48:25 +0000Carl Horowitz3913 at http://nlpc.orgBlago Gets 14 Years; Ethics Committee Must Now Act on Jesse Jackson, Jr.http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/12/09/blago-gets-14-years-ethics-committee-must-now-act-jesse-jackson-jr
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/jesse-jackson-jr_0.jpg" border="0" alt="Jesse Jackson, Jr. photo" width="200" height="149" />Yesterday, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison for, among other things, attempting to "sell" the US Senate seat that was once held by President Barack Obama. Blagojevich's punishment comes on the heels of the U.S. House Ethics Committee's decision to continue its investigation into Congressman Jesse Jackson's role in the same scheme.<!--break--></p>
<p>On December 2, the House Ethics Committee announced that it was continuing its investigation of Jackson for his alleged public campaign to "buy" the Senate seat in question. It is alleged by investigators that Jackson may have made unlawful use of his congressional office for these political activities as House rules prohibit the use of official resources for any political purposes. The investigation of Congressman has been underway for over two years.</p>
<p>Congressman Jackson, the son of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, is in his 9<sup>th</sup> term in the United States House of Representatives. The sentencing of the former Governor, coupled with the recent decision by House Committee to continue its investigation, are surely blows for Mr. Jackson he faces a difficult primary challenge. Former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson is running against Jackson in the upcoming Democrat primary and has been discussing the Congressman's legal and ethical problems in her attacks on Jackson.</p>
<p>Much like Blagojevich had done during his trial, Jackson maintains his innocence and says he will be cleared of these allegations. A letter to the House committee drafted by his lawyers stated that Jackson "did not direct or know" of any offer to provide campaign money to the disgraced former governor.</p>
<p>Many question Jackson's ability to withstand a strong primary challenge with these scandals swirling all around him. Surely yesterday's news will not help his efforts toward reelection.</p>
<p>NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm stated, "Jackson-like Blagojevich-has a history of questionable political ethics. So this comes as no surprise. Once again Chicago appears to be a sinkhole of corruption."</p>
<p>Boehm continued, "This is another test for the Ethics Committee, which keeps failing its assignments. The House cannot rely on far away criminal prosecutors to police itself. The charges against Jackson are about as serious as they get. Either the Republican majority is committed to ethics or it is not."</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/09/27/jesse-jackson-jr-denies-role-6m-scheme-bankroll-blagojevich">Jesse Jackson Jr. Denies Role in $6M Scheme to Bankroll Blagojevich</a></p>
<p><a href="http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/07/07/blagojevich-guilty-17-20-counts-case-only-partly-reveals-culture-corruption">Blagojevich Conviction Only Partly Reveals Culture of Corruption</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Culture of CorruptionGovernment Integrity ProjectHouse Ethics CommitteeJesse JacksonJr.Rod BlagojevichFri, 09 Dec 2011 13:01:50 +0000NLPC Staff3738 at http://nlpc.orgCase of Jesse Jackson, Jr. is Test for House Ethics Commiteehttp://nlpc.org/stories/2011/10/25/case-jesse-jackson-jr-test-house-ethics-commitee
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://nlpc.org/files/jesse-jackson-jr.jpg" border="0" alt="Jesse Jackson Jr. photo" width="200" height="149" />Last week, the United States House of Representatives Ethics Committee voted to end its temporary deferral of a case against Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL). The US Justice Department had requested the deferral but has since withdrawn that request. The case had been deferred for over two years.</p>
<p>Jackson, the son of Rev. Jesse Jackson, is in his ninth term in the US House and is under investigation for allegations that he attempted to buy the open US Senate seat that was vacated by President Barack Obama. It has been reported that Jackson's supporters were willing to raise $1.5 million on behalf of Governor Blagojevich's re-election campaign.<!--break--></p>
<p>While Jackson has maintained that he did no wrong, the investigation will continue. According to Associated Press and reported on theGrio.com, Jackson's office had no comment on the announcement and his attorney was unavailable for comment. In Chicago, the US Attorney's office had no comment on whether its probe of Jackson had concluded.</p>
<p>Congressman Jackson has admitted that he was "Senate Candidate A" in the criminal complaint against then Governor Rod Blagojevich. Blagojevich had considered a number of different candidates for the Obama seat.</p>
<p>Associated Press reported that while the future direction of the House investigation is not clear, the committee has looked at whether the Congressman or others on his behalf, offered to raise money for Blagojevich. The former governor was convicted of numerous charges this past summer including trying to sell the Senate seat.</p>
<p>The Ethics Committee is made up of ten members of the House of Representatives consisting of five from each party. In a statement released by the committee it noted that the extension "does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred."</p>
<p>The committee also stated that it would announce further plans regarding the investigation on December 2, 2011.</p>
<p>NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm said, "Eric Holder's Justice Department has now punted on prosecuting another member of Congress. Since Jackson is African-American and the case involved President Obama's Senate seat, the investigation probably never had a chance."</p>
<p>Boehm continued, "It is now up to the Ethics Committee to conduct a complete investigation. In the wake of the Maxine Waters fiasco, this is a test of whether the Committee can actually function and do its job."</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>Culture of CorruptionGovernment Integrity ProjectHouse Ethics CommiteeJesse JacksonJr.Rod BlagojevichTue, 25 Oct 2011 15:27:05 +0000Peter Flaherty3649 at http://nlpc.orgLloyd Blankfein Plays Dumb on Goldman Sachs Support for Jesse Jackson http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/05/09/lloyd-blankfein-plays-dumb-goldman-sachs-support-jesse-jackson
<p><img style="float: right;" src="http://www.nlpc.org/sites/default/files/Blankfein-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Blankfein photo" width="150" height="187" />At the Goldman Sachs annual meeting on Friday, I had an unplanned exchange with CEO Lloyd Blankfein about Goldman's support of Jesse Jackson, who was at the meeting and kept popping up to speak. Jackson was acting adversarial toward Blankfein, even though Goldman Sachs is one of Jackson&rsquo;s largest financial supporters.<br /><br />In hopes of ending this charade, I asked Blankfein to clarify the relationship between Goldman and Jackson as that of donor and recipient. Blankfein said he didn't know if Goldman supported Jackson. I challenged him by asking, "You do not know?" and "You give Jackson's group six-figure sums and you don't know about it?" Blankfein continued to play dumb, so I moved on to address <a href="http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2010/05/06/goldman-sachs-be-challenged-global-warming-annual-meeting">our resolution asking for a report on the science behind Goldman&rsquo;s embrace of global warming.</a><br /><br />Of course, Blankfein is not dumb, just dishonest.<!--break--><br /><br />At the end of my remarks, Jackson approached me at the podium, shook my hand, and started speaking again. I stayed at the podium because I thought he would address the issue of his Goldman support. He did not, which I took as confirmation of the support.</p>
<p>In 2007, NLPC sponsored a shareholder proposal asking Goldman Sachs to disclose its charitable contributions and the business rationale for each gift. I spoke for five minutes in support of the resolution, focusing on Goldman&rsquo;s support for Jackson and his group, the so-called Citizenship Education Fund. Goldman is a longtime sponsor of the Wall Street Project, Jackson&rsquo;s annual fundraising event in New York City. The Wall Street Project is a project of the Citizenship Education Fund.</p>
<p>From my 2007 remarks:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let&rsquo;s consider what Goldman is subsidizing through Jesse Jackson&rsquo;s organizations. Last April, the Duke rape case grabbed headlines, and soon after Jackson was on the scene. He dismissed suggestions that the accused lacrosse players were entitled to a presumption of innocence, and announced that the Rainbow/PUSH coalition would provide a college scholarship to the accuser. Of course, the stripper&rsquo;s allegations have fallen apart.</p>
<p>Disclosure of Goldman&rsquo;s contributions will assist shareholders in knowing exactly where their money is going. The 2007 Wall Street Conference is a project of something called the Citizenship Education Fund (CEF). According to the conference program, Goldman was a sponsor of the event.</p>
<p>Shareholders should be aware that:</p>
<ul>
<li>CEF was the vehicle for payments to Jackson&rsquo;s mistress for the purchase of a home, in violation of the group&rsquo;s 501(c) (3) tax status.</li>
<li>In 2005, CEF was fined by the Federal Election Commission for illegally coordinating with the Democratic National Committee in the 2000 elections. This partisan activity also violated CEF&rsquo;s tax status.</li>
<li>CEF sponsored a conference in Chicago in 2005 where Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan was a featured speaker. At the same event, controversial entertainer Harry Belafonte complained that &ldquo;only a Jew has a right to the word Holocaust.&rdquo; He went on to call Abraham Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League a &ldquo;powerful Jew&rdquo; and a &ldquo;liar.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<p>At the same conference in 2006, Jackson called for a boycott of British Petroleum, even though BP was a sponsor of the event, demonstrating that corporations may falsely believe they are buying protection by funding Jackson&rsquo;s groups.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
</blockquote>CEFCititzenship Education FundCorporate Integrity ProjectGoldman SachsJesse JacksonLloyd BankfeinshakedownsWall Street ProjectSun, 09 May 2010 18:37:33 +0000Peter Flaherty2859 at http://nlpc.orgSharpton Should Shut Up About Rush Limbaugh NFL Owner Bidhttp://nlpc.org/stories/2009/10/13/sharpton-should-shut-about-rush-limbaugh-nfl-ownership-bid
<p><a href="http://www.nlpc.org/sites/default/files/SharptonSpecialReport_0.pdf"><img style="float: right;" src="http://www.nlpc.org/sites/default/files/Sharpton_Cover-1_0.jpg" border="0" alt="Sharpton cover" width="180" height="233" /></a>I am not sure why Rush Limbaugh would want to own an NFL team. It is surely more fun to criticize the establishment on a daily basis than to become part of it. Leaving that aside, the last person in the world who should have a say in the matter is Al Sharpton. (The next to last is his mentor Jesse Jackson.) <br /><br />Sharpton has written a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell saying the NFL should reject Limbaugh&rsquo;s bid. Yesterday the <em>New York Times</em> actually <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/sports/football/13limbaugh.html">referred</a> to Sharpton&rsquo;s group, the National Action Network, as &ldquo;a civil rights organization,&rdquo; demonstrating the legitimacy that Sharpton has somehow come to enjoy in recent years. Let&rsquo;s see if Goodell will further elevate Sharpton&rsquo;s stature by responding in a serious way.<!--break--></p>
<p>As we documented in Special Report earlier this year, Sharpton is unapologetic about the Tawana Brawley hoax. He is a racial agitator and divider, and he has proved it time and time again, from claiming &ldquo;the boyfriend did it&rdquo; in the Central Park wilding case, to inciting anti-Jewish rage in Crown Heights, to the Freddie&rsquo;s Fashion Mart tragedy where his ugly words preceded the violence that claimed eight lives. <a href="http://www.nlpc.org/sites/default/files/SharptonSpecialReport.pdf">Click here or on the cover to the right to download a 50-page pdf version</a>.</p>
<p>Sundays (and Monday nights) are for me and many other Americans a welcome respite from what&rsquo;s on the news all week. It would truly be a shame if the NFL caves to the racial hustlers. Some people may not like Rush Limbaugh&rsquo;s politics, but he is a highly successful individual and has every right to try to buy a team.</p>
<p>If Rush is &ldquo;political,&rdquo; Steelers&rsquo; owner <a href="ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rooney">Dan Rooney</a> is even more so, serving in the Obama administration as Ambassador to Ireland. Rooney is also the sponsor of the Rooney Rule, which has sent the NFL down the road of racial preferences. If the concern is that Rush would bring his &ldquo;politics&rdquo; into the NFL, Rooney has already done so, and in a most unfortunate way, given the fact that the NFL is about as close to a true meritocracy as you can get.</p>
<p>Rooney and his family, who inherited their money, are rich. They have become richer through their close relationships with Pennsylvania politicians who provide all kinds of taxpayer subsidies to the Steelers and the stadium in which they play. The Rooneys are not unique in this regard, but if we are looking for objectionable situations involving NFL team ownership, this merits more attention than the prospect of Rush Limbaugh buying a team.</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2009/07/17/rooney-rule-pro-footballs-affirmative-action-deception">The 'Rooney Rule': Pro Football's Affirmative Action Deception</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2009/04/19/sharpton-fined-285k-fec-result-nlpc-complaint">Sharpton Fined $285K by FEC as Result of NLPC Complaint</a></p>Al SharptonCorporate Integrity ProjectDan RooneyJesse JacksonNFLPittsburgh SteelersRoger GoodellRooney RuleRush LimbaughshakedownsSt. Louis RamsTue, 13 Oct 2009 13:38:06 +0000Peter Flaherty2570 at http://nlpc.orgNLPC Challenges Proposed SEC Rule Mandating Corporate 'Diversity' http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/09/14/nlpc-challenges-proposed-sec-rule-mandating-corporate-diversity
<p><a href="http://www.nlpc.org/sites/default/files/DiversityTraining.pdf"><img style="float: right;" src="http://www.nlpc.org/sites/default/files/CorDivCover_0.jpg" border="0" alt="Diversity report cover" width="180" height="234" /></a>The Securities &amp; Exchange Commission this past July has <a href="http://www.theracetothebottom.org/independent-directors/corporate-governance-reform-and-the-sec-diversity-on-the-boa.html">proposed amending Item 407(c)(2)(v) of Regulation S-K</a> to require disclosure of racial and ethnic diversity on corporate and related nonprofit fund boards. We have submitted a comment of opposition because we believe this rule change to be a highly misguided intrusion into corporate governance.</p>
<p>Even assuming benign intent - and that is a stretch of an assumption - the outcome would be anything but benign. Anyone with sound instincts knows that any submitted information would be fair game for organizations seeking to tie executive compensation to the creation of a rigorously-monitored affirmative action spoils system.<!--break--></p>
<p>The SEC was established 75 years ago for the purpose of <a href="http://www.sec.gov/about/whatwedo.shtml">protecting investors</a> in publicly-traded securities against fraud and incompetence. Now more than ever this mission must be paramount.&nbsp;Whether the proportion of blacks, Hispanic, Asians and other minority groups in a given company adds up to 10 percent, 40 percent or 70 percent ought to be no concern. Companies should have the right to hire, retain and promote without outside interference. The proposed rule change, published in the July 17, 2009 Federal Register, would link executive and director compensation with SEC-determined goals for achieving an appropriate demographic composition. Such action would be out of line with the agency's mission.</p>
<p>The concept of diversity all too often has served as a means by which radical activists can institute mandatory racial preferences. Corporations generally have complied. They hire employees and/or consultants to train, monitor, evaluate, and where necessary, punish employees who fail to "sensitize" themselves to racial, ethnic and gender injustices they presumably have committed or ignored. A little over two years ago, I authored a monograph that summarized the often abusive tactics that diversity specialists use to intimidate and shame white employees, especially males among them. <a href="http://www.nlpc.org/sites/default/files/CorDiv_SR.pdf">Click here or on the Special Report cover above to download a 16-page pdf of "The Authoritarian Roots of Corporate Diversity Training."</a></p>
<p>Diversity training in particular has its origins in a malicious exercise developed more than 40 years ago by a white Iowa third-grade teacher, Jane Elliott, on her students who often has been frank in her loathing of her fellow whites. Starting in the Eighties, she has "trained" employees of many corporations using the same kind of thought control. The idea that employee morale improves following such training is not borne out by the evidence. To the contrary, morale often deteriorates. But employers, ever concerned over insulating themselves from spurious civil rights lawsuits, play along anyway.</p>
<p>The notion that the SEC will limit itself to gathering data, and won't use the information to punish companies not in compliance with diversity goals, is na&iuml;ve. The ulterior motive behind this revised regulation is the creation of enforceable goals and timetables - in other words, quotas. Information is only the first step. Knowledge is power. And the knowledge that a given company may be "discriminating" will be the basis for boycotts, civil suits and consent decrees. In other words, self-styled civil-rights activists will use the federal regulatory apparatus in the same way they've been using (or threatening to use) the courts. Texaco, Toyota, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch and Viacom are but several companies in recent years to have fallen prey to <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=14579">affirmative action politicians such as Jesse Jackson</a>. To such activists, the modern corporation is less a business enterprise than an arena for racial and ethnic power-seeking.</p>
<p>What is ultimately demeaning about the SEC proposal is its assumption of the existence of a single viewpoint corresponding to blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, the disabled and other groups presumed to be underrepresented. It ought to be evident that points of view do differ within groups, and not just between them. There is no one "black" viewpoint in the workplace any more than there is a "white" or an "Asian" viewpoint. If the Securities &amp; Exchange Commission wants to promote corporate diversity, it should promote a diversity of opinion instead.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Corporate Integrity ProjectJane ElliottJesse JacksonSecurities & Exchange CommissionMon, 14 Sep 2009 20:51:41 +0000Carl Horowitz2522 at http://nlpc.orgWhy Obama Is Wrong About Henry Louis Gateshttp://nlpc.org/stories/2009/07/23/why-obama-wrong-about-henry-louis-gates
<p><img alt="Obama photo" border="0" height="177" src="http://www.nlpc.org/sites/default/files/AP090722026144.jpg" style="float: right;" width="150" />One of the more irritating aspects of what passes for civil-rights activism in this country is the constant clamoring for a &quot;national conversation on race.&quot; In practice, what this amounts to is blacks accusing and whites apologizing. About a dozen years ago, President Bill Clinton explicitly called for this sort of &quot;dialogue.&quot; Now President Barack Obama has jumped into the fray. At the close of his press conference this evening, <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/.../07/obama_cambridge.html">Obama denounced Cambridge, Massachusetts police</a> for acting &quot;stupidly&quot; in arresting Harvard African-American Studies Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. on July 16 for disorderly behavior. <!--break--> Yet the facts of the case - beginning with the fact that police and prosecutors soon dropped the charge - speak more about the disregard for logic and context among blacks eager to locate the latest evidence of institutional &quot;racism.&quot;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Henry Louis (&quot;Skip&quot;) Gates is a reasonably competent scholar who owes his heavyweight credentials primarily to the fact that he is black. Born and raised in West Virginia, Gates, now 58, joined the Harvard faculty in 1991 following teaching stints at Yale, Cornell and Duke. As one of the university&#39;s 20 prestigious &quot;university professors,&quot; he also is director of&nbsp;Harvard&#39;s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research. He also&nbsp;hosted a PBS television miniseries in 2006, &quot;African-American Lives.&quot; In 1997, Time magazine named him&nbsp;as one of the 25 most influential Americans. That&#39;s pretty heady stuff. But his scholarly output has assumed an all too familiar, if nuanced, grievance-and-entitlement mentality that virtually defines black identity politics in this country. It&#39;s also apparently an extension of his personality - which as Cambridge police found out a week ago can get prickly in a hurry.</p>
<p>Accounts differ, but <a href="http://www.bostonherald.com/news/...jr.../srvc=home&amp;position=1">law enforcement sources assert the following</a>. Gates last Thursday early afternoon had arrived back at the private home he rents near Harvard Square, fresh from a trip to China where he was working on a documentary film. Having found the front door jammed, he&nbsp;forced his way in through the back door, and with his driver&#39;s help. Normally, that wouldn&#39;t have been cause for concern. But it so happened that a&nbsp;passing woman&nbsp;notified police of suspicious behavior during the front-door phase, witnessing, as the police report put it, &quot;two black males with backpacks on the porch,&quot; one of whom was &quot;wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry.&quot; When officers arrived, Gates already was inside and on the phone with the real estate company that manages the property. He told the cops, one of whom was black as well, that he entered through the back door and shut off the alarm.</p>
<p>Had Gates politely told the officers that this was a misunderstanding and laid out the details, the cops in all likelihood would have left. But perhaps unable to distinguish between an honest mistake and willful harassment, he launched into a tirade. He yelled at the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, who is white, accusing him of racial bias.&nbsp; Gates&nbsp;simply refused to calm down. Asked to produce an ID, he snapped back, &quot;No, I will not!&quot; As police tried to question him, he shouted, &quot;This is what happens to black men in America!&quot; Crowley stated in his police report that he tried to calm Gates, but that Gates shouted, &quot;You don&#39;t know who you&#39;re messing with.&quot; After following Crowley out the front porch calling him a &quot;racist,&quot; police arrested him, charging him with disorderly conduct. He was booked, photographed, fingerprinted and placed in a temporary holding cell. Police did release Gates, however, after he paid&nbsp;a $40 fee. He then was scheduled for an arraignment on August 26 at Cambridge District Court in Medford, Mass.</p>
<p>Because Gates is a public figure, the case went from local to national news at warp speed. Suddenly, the Cambridge, Mass. Police Department found itself with the worst sort of publicity. This Tuesday, Middlesex County prosecutors dropped the charge. The City of Cambridge termed the arrest &quot;regrettable and unfortunate.&quot; But to Gates, this was Round One of payback time. With the help of Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, a prominent supporter of <a href="http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2009/04/29/monograph-case-against-slave-reparations">slavery reparations</a>, Gates went on the offensive. &quot;I&#39;m outraged,&quot; he said in an interview with the&nbsp;web site of which he is&nbsp;founding editor (and which the Washington Post now owns), TheRoot.com. &quot;I can&#39;t believe that an individual policeman on the Cambridge police force would treat any African-American male this way, and I am astonished that this happened to me; and more importantly I&#39;m astonished that it could happen to any citizen of the United States, no matter what their race.&quot; <a href="news.yahoo.com/s/ap/.../us_harvard_scholar_disorderly ">He added</a>: &quot;There are 1 million black men in the prison system, and on Thursday I became one of them.&quot; Gates really did believe that his race caused him to be arrested. So apparently has President Obama.</p>
<p>At his presidential news conference tonight, Barack Obama cited local police for being stupid. But&nbsp;the full context of his&nbsp;remark suggests a worldview heavily influenced by&nbsp;black civil-rights radicalism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Now, I don&#39;t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it&#39;s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there&#39;s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That&#39;s just a fact.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the idea that Henry Louis Gates is merely the latest casualty in the never-ending saga of&nbsp;racist profiling&nbsp;doesn&#39;t hold up.</p>
<p>First, race&nbsp;is a basic marker for identifying criminal suspects. Like sex, height, weight, tattoos or clothing, it&#39;s an identifiable trait that enables police officers to track down suspects without violating the rights of the innocent. If the woman making the call to the Cambridge police that evening didn&#39;t provide information about the race of the suspect, any number of whites could have been questioned or frisked. Race narrows down the range of possibilities. What is often denounced as &quot;profiling&quot; helps police avoid arbitrary arrests. Manhattan Institute&nbsp;Fellow Heather Mac Donald, who has published extensively on this subject, argues that profiling helps law-abiding black Americans, though public officials in both major parties, fearful of being&nbsp;called &quot;racist&quot; or &quot;insensitive,&quot; would never admit to this.&nbsp; Mac Donald&#39;s main point is that&nbsp;police&nbsp;can&#39;t protect the public&nbsp;if they are denied the opportunity to obtain basic information about potential suspects. Writing in the institute&#39;s flagship publication, City Journal, several years ago, <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_2_the_racial_profiling.html ">she argued</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(F)ar more than politics is at stake in the poisonous anti-racial profiling agenda. It has strained police-community relations and made it more difficult for the police to protect law-abiding citizens in inner-city neighborhoods. The sooner the truth about policing gets out, the more lives will be saved, and the more communities will be allowed to flourish freed from the yoke of crime.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Second, related to the first point, blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crime relative to whites. <a href="http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm">Justice Department&nbsp;data for the period 1976-2005</a> show that 52.2 percent of all homicide offenders were black in&nbsp;cases where the race of the culprit was known, despite the fact that blacks are only 12 percent of the&nbsp;U.S. population.&nbsp;&nbsp;Nobody is suggesting Henry Louis Gates is a criminal. The point is Cambridge police weren&#39;t aware of that fact when they responded to the &quot;911&quot; call.&nbsp; Quite literally, they didn&#39;t know who&nbsp;they were dealing with.&nbsp; It&#39;s no slam at&nbsp;the cops&nbsp;if they assumed that questioning a black suspect carried a higher risk than questioning a white one.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Third and finally, given the professor&#39;s highly agitated behavior, police&nbsp;surmised that Gates might have been covering up a crime. Granted, they guessed&nbsp;wrong. But anyone, including whites, knows that to defy police or act belligerently when questioned by them is to risk arrest. That&nbsp;might not seem fair. Indeed, it isn&#39;t - on the surface. But remember something else:&nbsp;Cops, as&nbsp;public servants&nbsp;and as individuals, themselves live in fear of being crime statistics; they have a self-preservation instinct. A criminal suspect behaving in a threatening manner may well in the next instant pull out a gun and shoot. Police can&#39;t take that risk, even as they respect the rights of the suspect. Roughly 50 law enforcement officers in this country <em>each year</em> are murdered in the line of duty. That, too, is a fact that President Obama chose to overlook.</p>
<p>None of this has&nbsp;stopped America&#39;s civil-rights paladins, overdosing on emotion, from being loaded for bear. Jesse Jackson opined, &quot;The charges have been dropped, but the stain remains...Humiliation remains. These incidents are so much of a national pattern on race.&quot; Black Enterprise magazine publisher Earl Graves, Jr. issued a similar rebuke: &quot;Under any account...all of it is totally uncalled for.&quot; And <a href="http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2009/05/14/new-nlpc-special-report-exposes-real-al-sharpton">Al Sharpton</a>, never one to be pushed to the background, remarked after having personally spoken with a &quot;shaken&quot; Gates,&nbsp;&quot;I&#39;ve heard of driving while black, and I&#39;ve heard of shopping while black. But I&#39;ve never heard of living in a home while black.&quot; That was just hours before prosecutors dropped the charge. As for Henry Louis Gates, he says the affair has inspired him to do a documentary on racial profiling. No doubt the end result will add cannon fodder to the endless national &quot;conversation on race.&quot; It&#39;s unlikely he&#39;ll have to visit China for this project.</p>
<p>photo: AP/Wide World</p>
<p><em><strong>UPDATE:</strong></em> The Smoking Gun has put up the <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0723092gates1.html">Gates arrest repor</a><a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0723092gates1.html">t</a>. Because Obama said that the Cambridge Police acted &quot;stupidly,&quot; while at the same time acknowledging he did not have all the facts, the report represents the side of the story from Officers Crowley and Figueroa.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
Al SharptonBarack ObamaCambridge (Mass.) Police DepartmentCharles OgletreeGovernment Integrity ProjectHarvard UniversityHeather Mac DonaldHenry Louis GatesJesse JacksonManhattan InstituteSlave ReparationsThu, 23 Jul 2009 04:37:34 +0000Carl Horowitz931 at http://nlpc.org